Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 01:08:29 +0100 From: Jan Straathof <janstr-AT-chan.nl> Subject: Re: BHA: Hegel, dialectics, etc Hi Phil, yes, when we are reasoning such as "no X without Y" (or "if Y then X") we -in fact- are focussing on the roll a linear or a singural causality plays in the development and unfolding of histories, but looking at history i see host of plural (causal) mechnisms and agents that are at work (or at lack). for me - and let me speculate a bit here - there seems a problematic in your somewhat focal attention to the influence of key figures/thinkers, one similarly found in the historicism of Nietzsche and Marx, i.e. that they seem to reduce the 'historical process' solely to one generative mechanism viz. "the will to power" or "class struggle"; this imo is a too flat and ontological monovalent conception of history --- there is more ontological layering to/in history then only will to power or class struggles, f.i. multiple and demi-temporalities, geo-cosmic rhythmics, physical limits and thresholds, strange mediators, exotic teleologies ... ok - and this is my point- i think that key thinkers (and their systems) can/will only play an exidental or coincidental roll in the shaping of history, what is causally as much (or maybe even more) important is the existence of socalled "windows of opportunity" e.g. those free and creative spaces which emerge in chaotic situations of bifurcation, and -of course- at those moments philosophers, or any other human being, can make a significant difference and offer a lasting and hope- fully a valuable contribution to progress; but the emergences of these 'windows of opportunity' are very difficult to detect or predict and even more difficult to evoke (if possible at all), because they catergo- rically fall outside the realm of human causal powers --- maybe this sounds too pessimistic for you, but it's my simple version of TDCR at the moment :-) yours, Jan --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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