Morphology and History

Schopenhauer and Spengler on the Possibility of a Science of History

Schopenhauer against History

The first step into any scientific inquiry is to define parameters and guiding principles. What am I studying? What sort of thing is it? How do I study this thing? To the natural sciences, this is a fairly intuitive process. For the natural sciences, this process is typically straightforward. A zoologist focuses on animals; a botanist studies plants; a physicist delves into the laws governing matter. Prior to dissecting a specimen, a zoologist, for instance, can anticipate certain characteristics based on its classification. Take a whale, for example. Knowing it belongs to the class Mammalia, the zoologist can expect to find lungs, seven cervical vertebrae, a diaphragm, and other traits. Similarly, a botanist anticipates features like leaves, flowers, fruit, and roots in a tree specimen. Both scientists rely on universal principles that govern their respective subjects.

Since its inception, philosophy has harbored aspirations of universality. Anything discernible through systematic inquiry is deemed within the realm of philosophy. Aristotle's extensive works, spanning from metaphysics to biology, politics, poetics, logic, and beyond, exemplify this expansive domain. However, a particular discipline has emerged, sparking considerable debate among philosophers—History. While philosophy speaks of the universal and the eternally true, History appears to be the ephemeral study of things past. By its nature, History never refers to the eternally true but only to the multitude of passing events, epochs, and great men. Can History belong to philosophy?

The central problem with History is its lack of a universal. Unlike the natural sciences, which categorize physical specimens under generic concepts (i.e., genera), History presents an ever-expanding collection of specific instances seemingly disconnected from any overarching universal. In a short essay titled On History, Schopenhauer expounds on this issue. He argues that History cannot be treated as a science akin to the natural sciences. In scientific inquiry, repeated examinations of physical specimens enable the formulation of general laws to which particulars must adhere. For instance, a scientist dissecting a whale, a dolphin, a manatee, and a shark can observe common features such as vertebrae, lungs, and mammary glands in the first three specimens. These shared characteristics allow for their grouping under a generic concept, perhaps "aquatic mammals." However, the fourth specimen, lacking some of these traits, necessitates classification as something distinct.

Schopenhauer states that this subjective nature of History prevents us from studying it systematically. Consequently, it is of less value than something like poetry in ascertaining the essence of man.

History alone cannot properly enter into this series, since it cannot boast of the same advantage as the others, for it lacks the fundamental characteristic of science, the subordination of what is known; instead of this it boasts of the mere coordination of what is known… History would accordingly be a science of individual things, which implies a contradiction.

To make matters worse, our object of inquiry is far more nebulous than those of the natural scientist. We have no problem picking out a whale in the ocean or the tree swaying in the wind. Their immediate appearance to our sense-perception “specimens” content us to the fact of their reality. In fact, the issue would likely never even occur to the scientist. Biological entities exhibit clear borders. Where the whale begins and ends is immediately apparent to our senses. Historical phenomena lack such immediate perceptibility. We rely on mental reconstructions gleaned from biographies, documents, speeches, and other sources to apprehend historical events. “No man can judge history but one who has himself experienced history”, says Goethe. Whatever mediates subject and object is cursed by a historical distance. It's akin to a zoologist having to study a beast solely based on historical descriptions rather than dissecting a tangible specimen on a lab bench. 

The historian has no luxury of species, stable types, or dissection and experimentation. His “specimens” are events, leaders, governments, and so on. Pericles, the rule of the Thirty Tyrants, the Peloponnesian War. These are things which existed only for a short slice of time. Consequently, the notion of a "science of individual things" within history becomes problematic because there is no universal "type" to which these specimens must adhere. Each historical occurrence is unique, defying classification under overarching categories or types. Schopenhauer illustrates his point by writing,

Thus I may know in general about the Thirty Years’ War, namely that it was a religious war waged in the seventeenth century; but this general knowledge does not enable me to state anything more detailed about its course.

To Schopenhauer, knowing the “type” of war which occurred tells you nothing about the war that actually occurred. Wars within the same "type" exhibit such diverse and numerous variations that claiming to possess generic knowledge for judging them appears absurd. Generic knowledge thrives in disciplines characterized by uniformity and regularity, which is not the case in history. The zoologist does not worry about this since every generation of bats, whales, and dogs are roughly the same. Between specimens of the same species, variation is minimal and easily accounted for. Unlike the relative consistency found in species studied by zoologists, history is replete with such idiosyncrasies that to speak of generic knowledge yields the historian a superficial understanding at best. Therefore, History seems to be in crisis. Many of Schopenhauer’s contemporaries (Hegel and his successors especially) are so wont to treat History as a science, that they ignore this issue. History, the realm of the artificial events of man’s own doing, has no universal. There can be no catalogs of types nor can there be any investigations into the “essence” of historical phenomena. It seems impossible.

If only History could be laid out on the dissecting bench as easily as this poor fellow…

But let’s not dismiss the possibility of a Philosophy of History on Schopenhauer’s sagacious counsel alone. Let’s consider our parameters once more.

What is it? What sort of thing is it?

“History” is a broad classification. Taken literally, it would simply mean everything that has ever happened. Perhaps this classification is too broad. If we are seeking generic knowledge subsumed under universal types, we should articulate these types. No wonder that History, itself a type of universal, cannot be subsumed into meaningful genera without stripping the importance of particulars. Schopenhauer's observation highlights an issue with taxonomy rather than a definitive pronouncement on the limitations of historical inquiry. It follows that we might reconsider our Philosophy of History by focusing on specific types of phenomena rather than attempting to encompass the entirety of past existence.

In his Politics, Aristotle characterizes humans as "political animals," highlighting their inherent inclination towards communal living and the formation of cities, which serve the purpose of fostering a good life. Shortly after, Aristotle contrasts this with the communal life of bees. The main difference between bees and humans is less important for the question at hand. It boils down to human rationality and speech versus the bees who act by instinct alone. What’s important here is the use of the bee colony as a natural social entity. Understanding the behavior of bees necessitates reference to the colony as a whole. We speak of the particular roles of male drones, female workers, forager bees, and the queen bee insofar as they contribute to the activity of the colony. These individuals form a greater whole that lends itself nicely to inquiry. Drawing parallels to humanity, we can similarly examine the collective wholes that humans form and participate in. In other words, we can study the bee colony as a natural whole through a natural-scientific lens. Why can’t we do the same for human communities?

So are we still “historians”? Perhaps not if we still use Schopenhauer’s understanding of History as the totality of all past events. But if we focus on a single “type” of phenomenon (one that permits generic knowledge), we might still be historians of something. But of what?