End of history

Last updated

The end of history is a political and philosophical concept that supposes that a particular political, economic, or social system may develop that would constitute the end-point of humanity's sociocultural evolution and the final form of human government. A variety of authors have argued that a particular system is the "end of history" including Thomas More in Utopia , Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vladimir Solovyov, Alexandre Kojève, [1] and Francis Fukuyama in the 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man . [2]

Contents

The concept of an end of history differs from ideas of an end of the world as expressed in various religions, which may forecast a complete destruction of the Earth or of life on Earth, and the end of the human race. The end of history instead proposes a state in which human life continues indefinitely into the future without any further major changes in society, system of governance, or economics.

History

The phrase the end of history was first used by French philosopher and mathematician Antoine Augustin Cournot in 1861 "to refer to the end of the historical dynamic with the perfection of civil society". [3] Arnold Gehlen adopted it in 1952 and it has been taken up more recently by Heidegger and Vattimo. [3]

The formal development of an idea of an "end of history" is most closely associated with Hegel, although Hegel discussed the idea in ambiguous terms, making it unclear whether he thought such a thing was a certainty or a mere possibility. [4] The goal of Hegel's philosophy on history was to show that history is a process of realization of reason, for which he does not name a definite endpoint. Hegel believes that it is on the one hand the task of history to show that there is essentially reason in the development over time, while on the other hand history itself also has the task of developing reason over time. The realization of history is thus something that one can observe, but also something that is an active task. [5]

In postmodernism

A postmodern understanding of the term differs in that

The idea of an "end of history" does not imply that nothing more will ever happen. Rather, what the postmodern sense of an end of history tends to signify is, in the words of contemporary historian Keith Jenkins, the idea that "the peculiar ways in which the past was historicized (was conceptualized in modernist, linear and essentially metanarrative forms) has now come to an end of its productive life; the all-encompassing 'experiment of modernity' ... is passing away into our postmodern condition". [6]

Francis Fukuyama

A name that is commonly linked to the concept of the end of history in contemporary discourse is Francis Fukuyama. Fukuyama brought the term back to the forefront with his essay The End of History? that was published months before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In this essay, which he later expanded upon in his book The End of History and the Last Man in 1992, Fukuyama builds on the knowledge of Hegel, Marx and Kojève. The essay centers around the idea that now that its two most important competitors, fascism and communism, have been defeated, there should no longer be any serious competition for liberal democracy and the market economy. [7]

In his theory, Fukuyama distinguishes between the material or real world and the world of ideas or consciousness. He believes that in the realm of ideas liberalism has proven to be triumphant, meaning that even though a successful liberal democracy and market economy have not yet been established everywhere, there are no longer any ideological competitors for these systems. This would mean that any fundamental contradiction in human life can be worked out within the context of modern liberalism and would not need an alternative political-economic structure to be resolved. Now that the end of history is reached, Fukuyama believes that international relations would be primarily concerned with economic matters and no longer with politics or strategy, thus reducing the chances of a large scale international violent conflict.

Fukuyama concludes that the end of history will be a sad time, because the potential of ideological struggles that people were prepared to risk their lives for has now been replaced with the prospect of "economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands." [8] This does not mean that Fukuyama believes that a modern liberal democracy is the perfect political system, but rather that he does not think another political structure can provide citizens with the levels of wealth and personal liberties that a liberal democracy can. [9]

Quantification

A 2022 research article published by the Royal Society Open Science models the transition between political regimes as a Markov process and, using a Bayesian inference approach, it estimates the transition probabilities between political regimes from time-series data describing the evolution of political regimes from 1800 to 2018. The author then compute the steady state for this Markov process which represents a mathematical abstraction of the End of history and predicts that approximately 46% of countries will be full democracies. Furthermore, he finds that, under his model, the fraction of autocracies in the world is expected to increase for the next half-century before it declines. Using random-walk theory, he then estimate survival curves of different types of regimes and estimate characteristic lifetimes of democracies and autocracies of 244 years and 69 years, respectively. Quantifying the expected End of history allows us to challenge common beliefs about the nature of political equilibria. Specifically, there is no statistical evidence that the End of history constitutes a fixed, complete omnipresence of democratic regimes. [10]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francis Fukuyama</span> American political scientist, political economist, and author

Francis Yoshihiro Fukuyama is an American political scientist, political economist, international relations scholar, and writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel</span> German philosopher (1770–1831)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher and one of the most influential figures of German idealism and 19th-century philosophy. His influence extends across the entire range of contemporary philosophical topics, from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political philosophy, the philosophy of history, philosophy of art, philosophy of religion, and the history of philosophy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Political philosophy</span> Philosophy of governance and politics

Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, justice, liberty, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of laws by authority: what they are, if they are needed, what makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect, what form it should take, what the law is, and what duties citizens owe to a legitimate government, if any, and when it may be legitimately overthrown, if ever.

<i>The End of History and the Last Man</i> 1992 book by Francis Fukuyama

The End of History and the Last Man is a 1992 book of political philosophy by American political scientist Francis Fukuyama which argues that with the ascendancy of Western liberal democracy—which occurred after the Cold War (1945–1991) and the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991)—humanity has reached "not just ... the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: That is, the end-point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."

Late capitalism is a concept first used in print by German economist Werner Sombart at the start of the 20th century. In the late 2010s, the term began to be used in the United States and Canada to refer to corporate capitalism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marx's theory of alienation</span> Social theory claiming that capitalism alienates workers from their humanity

Karl Marx's theory of alienation describes the estrangement of people from aspects of their human nature as a consequence of the division of labor and living in a society of stratified social classes. The alienation from the self is a consequence of being a mechanistic part of a social class, the condition of which estranges a person from their humanity.

Philosophy of history is the philosophical study of history and its discipline. The term was coined by the French philosopher Voltaire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Civil society</span> Third sector of society, distinct from government and business

Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere. By other authors, civil society is used in the sense of 1) the aggregate of non-governmental organizations and institutions that advance the interests and will of citizens or 2) individuals and organizations in a society which are independent of the government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexandre Kojève</span> Russian-born French philosopher and statesman

Alexandre Kojève was a Russian-born French philosopher and statesman whose philosophical seminars had an immense influence on 20th-century French philosophy, particularly via his integration of Hegelian concepts into twentieth-century continental philosophy. As a statesman in the French government, he was instrumental in the formation of the European Union.

<i>The Open Society and Its Enemies</i> 1945 book by Karl Popper

The Open Society and Its Enemies is a work on political philosophy by the philosopher Karl Popper, in which the author presents a "defence of the open society against its enemies", and offers a critique of theories of teleological historicism, according to which history unfolds inexorably according to universal laws. Popper indicts Plato, Hegel, and Marx for relying on historicism to underpin their political philosophies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criticism of Marxism</span> Overview of academic criticism of the school of political economy

Criticism of Marxism has come from various political ideologies, campaigns and academic disciplines. This includes general intellectual criticism about dogmatism, a lack of internal consistency, criticism related to materialism, arguments that Marxism is a type of historical determinism or that it necessitates a suppression of individual rights, issues with the implementation of communism and economic issues such as the distortion or absence of price signals and reduced incentives. In addition, empirical and epistemological problems are frequently identified.

Crawford Brough Macpherson was an influential Canadian political scientist who taught political theory at the University of Toronto.

Sittlichkeit is the concept of "ethical life" or "ethical order" furthered by German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. It was first presented in his work Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) to refer to "ethical behavior grounded in custom and tradition and developed through habit and imitation in accordance with the objective laws of the community" and it was further developed in his work Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1820).

Articles in social and political philosophy include:

Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law. Liberals espouse various and often mutually warring views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights, liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion, constitutional government and privacy rights. Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history.

False necessity, or anti-necessitarian social theory, is a contemporary social theory that argues for the plasticity of social organizations and their potential to be shaped in new ways. The theory rejects the assumption that laws of change govern the history of human societies and limit human freedom. It is a critique of "necessitarian" thought in conventional social theories which hold that parts of the social order are necessary or the result of the natural flow of history. The theory rejects the idea that human societies must be organized in a certain way and that human activity will adhere to certain forms.

Marxist humanism is an international body of thought and political action rooted in a humanist interpretation of the works of Karl Marx. It is an investigation into "what human nature consists of and what sort of society would be most conducive to human thriving" from a critical perspective rooted in Marxist philosophy. Marxist humanists argue that Marx himself was concerned with investigating similar questions.

The following is a list of the major events in the history of German idealism, along with related historical events.

Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are works in philosophy that are strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory, or works written by Marxists. Marxist philosophy may be broadly divided into Western Marxism, which drew from various sources, and the official philosophy in the Soviet Union, which enforced a rigid reading of what Marx called dialectical materialism, in particular during the 1930s. Marxist philosophy is not a strictly defined sub-field of philosophy, because the diverse influence of Marxist theory has extended into fields as varied as aesthetics, ethics, ontology, epistemology, social philosophy, political philosophy, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of history. The key characteristics of Marxism in philosophy are its materialism and its commitment to political practice as the end goal of all thought. The theory is also about the struggles of the proletariat and their reprimand of the bourgeoisie.

<i>Introduction to the Reading of Hegel</i> 1947 book by Alexandre Kojève

Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit is a 1947 book about Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel by the philosopher Alexandre Kojève, in which the author combines the labor philosophy of Karl Marx with the Being-Toward-Death of Martin Heidegger. Kojève develops many themes that would be fundamental to existentialism and French theory such as the end of history and the Master-Slave Dialectic.

References

  1. ↑ Boucher, Geoff. "History and Desire in Kojève".
  2. ↑ Fukuyama himself began to revise his ideas and abandon some of the neoconservative components of his thesis since the Iraq War. Interview with Ex-Neocon Francis Fukuyama: "A Model Democracy Is not Emerging in Iraq" Spiegel Online, March 22, 2006
  3. 1 2 Mike Featherstone, "Global and Local Cultures", in John Bird, Barry Curtis, Tim Putnam, Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change (1993), p. 184, n. 3.
  4. ↑ William Desmond, "Hegel, Art, and History", in Robert L. Perkins, ed., History and System: Hegel's Philosophy of History (1984), p. 173.
  5. ↑ Fillion, R. (2008). Multicultural Dynamics and the Ends Of History: Exploring Kant, Hegel and Marx, p. 89
  6. ↑ Simon Malpas, The Postmodern (2004), p. 89, quoting Keith Jenkins (2001), p. 57.
  7. ↑ Fukuyama, F. (1989) "The End of History?". The National Interest', p 1.
  8. ↑ Fukuyama, F. (1989) "The End of History?". The National Interest, p 17.
  9. ↑ Fukuyama, F. (2013). "The 'End of History' 20 Years Later". New Perspectives Quarterly. 30 (4): 31. doi:10.1111/npqu.11399 . Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  10. ↑ Klimm, Florian (2022). "Quantifying the 'end of history' through a Bayesian Markov-chain approach". Royal Society Open Science . 9 (11). doi:10.1098/rsos.221131. PMC   9709514 . PMID   36465687. Creative Commons by small.svg  This article incorporates textfrom this source, which is available under the CC BY 4.0 license.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.