Philosophy of History (History of Philosophy): Part I -
A Set of Reflections*

0.   Introduction

	A set of ideas on the philosophical nature of doing historical research; speculating about the past, present and future; evaluating the merit of historical reflections, etc., were workshopped in a recent open forum on the topic of leaving Iraq (the working paper on that topic can be found in the document LeavingIraq.rtf on my homepage whose address is noted at bottom of this page by *). In reflection upon the same I have noted the following as a working paper for a comprehensive approach or method for dealing with this topic of the philosophy of history. (0)

	This topic can be divided into three subdivisions, namely, a factology, a narrative hermeneutics and a meta-historical appreciation. (1)

Each of these subdivisions can then be treated from a theoretical, practical and critical perspective (the latter aspect giving us, respectively, a meta-factology, a meta-narrative hermeneutics and a meta-meta-historical appreciation). (2) 

In recognition that these divisions are non-absolute a tenth classification of ‘doing history’ completes this scheme and will be briefly examined under the headings of events, textual depositions, historical genres, historians, historical-oriented textual depositions and audience oriented processes of reception). (3)

All of the above, as an industry, being seen to fall within the historical mode-of-life (the appearance of all parties within the same being associated as interrelated forms-of-life in the World-of-Life/Life-World). (4)

1.   A Factology

	Facts can never be totally wrong (nor totally right) only modified! An historical narrative is created by utilizing a set of facts and connecting their significance by their hermeneutic interconnection within a relevant historical narrative. Let me define this sense of fact as ‘an event-possibility in which at least one human participant has directly or indirectly participated in through a re-arrangement of their environment and/or a re-location of their person or persons along with the expected and/or unexpected consequences that devolve from the same.’ E.g., Caesar crossed the Rubicon. The logical form of this fact is that ‘there exists a certain historical figure called ‘Caesar’ and a certain river called the ‘Rubicon’ (in Northern Italy) and the former as noted crossed over the latter (at a certain period of time) along with the military and political ramifications implied at that time by this act.’ Usually the truth value of this proposition is considered to be historically true. But what if it were not the case that *Latest version of text: www.homestead.com/noelshomepage/noelshomepage3.html
this fact was historically ‘true’? Could this fact be totally wrong? No! This Caesar existed, this river called the Rubicon existed and still exists, and, in that era and in that context for Caesar to cross the same certain military and political consequences were and would be expected to follow. Deny the truth value of this fact (as originally expressed) and you only imply the modification of the same. Then, if you were to deny the existence of a Roman World, you still could not deny the existence of the world itself (since you as a member of this world are declaring this same fact as non-existent and that would involve an insurmountable contradiction). (5)

	Facts are either relatively relevant or relatively non-relevant in a particular historical narrative! In an historical narrative facts utilized in its construction are either relevant or irrelevant. Relevancy could be defined as ‘either essential or supportive.’ In an essential sense the absence or presence of a certain fact, or factual component, in a certain historical narrative makes a profound difference both to its narration and/or its import. That ‘Caesar crossed the Rubicon’ depends upon the necessary existence of this particular actor and particular place in order for this particular act of crossing that river to take place. On the other hand, if Caesar were singing or carrying on a conversation as he crossed this river this fact is basically irrelevant to its narration (unless these details add or subtract a certain degree of relevancy to the particular narration being told). (6)

	In historical disputation different procedures apply to facts, narratives, and their appreciation, and, should not be confused! In historical disputation facts usually are not contested. If this is the case then disputation is either over narrative content and/or over an appreciation of narrative style. In the controversy of holocaust denial either the narrative of the holocaust is denied and/or the facts of the same are denied. Or, the usefulness of this historical genre is called into question. However, to deny this type of discourse, or some other, any degree of legitimacy is to commit an act of ontological exemption which can only be entertained in an act of over-ontological commitment, as defined elsewhere as occurring in a pseudo-psychosis or an ontological psychosis (whereas the refusal to entertain the possibility of its belief is 
conducted in a pseudo-psychosis of an epistemological flavour). (7)

	Usually historical contestation is over hermeneutic content and/or an appreciation of hermeneutic style! More often, historical argument occurs within a certain hermeneutic genre and concerns questions of internal propriety and external appropriateness of narration. Internal propriety concerns the correct utilization of factual elements and narrative connectives, whereas, external appropriateness is the relevant relative measure of utility derived from that narration within its historical genre of exercise. (8)

	The creation of facts occurs from an examination of textual depositions in accordance with their relevant forms of hermeneutic assessment; usually, however, facts are drawn from cultural inventories! Intentional behaviour leaves an intentional trail of depositions, as traces, upon the fabric of the world. Such depositions occurring in parallel forms of deposition (dependent upon the nature of their intentional deposition). E.g., we might find texts written by or about Caesar, buildings erected by his command, etc. (recognizing the presence of numerous other agents often in the creation and preservation of these parallel trails of traces). (9) 

	That a fact is ultimately a fact by virtue of its narration! Hence this need for their dialectical distinction and accommodation (in the adoption and adaptation of a genre or set of genres or hybrid genre of intentional activity involved in that form of doing history; be it theoretical, practical or critical in overall aspiration). Thence our discipline of factology (and its critical exercise in a meta-factological investigation and examination). (10)	

2.   A Narrative Hermeneutics

	Usually history is centered on one or more narrative interpretations of a sequence of events (even if only one event is being overtly focused upon)! With an emphasis neither on the factological or stylistic appreciation a specific type of narration is adaptationally entered into in accordance with the particular genre or mix of genres adopted. (11)

	In narration a story is told in accordance with the genre or mix of genres adopted and adapted! Hence ‘his-story’ or ‘her-story’ or ‘their-story’. This performance usually comes with a beginning, a middle and an end (although this demarcation might not be clear or finalized or in that exact order). (12)

	Throughout a narration meta-textual elements determine the course of this genre-dependent reading! Hence the announcement of intentions, introductions, the induction of certain expectations, the exhibition of the types of arguments to be utilized, conclusions reached or not reached, definitions, digressions, etc., etc. (13)

	The bedrock of narration is its ‘demonstration’ of facts and their ‘presentation’ in the form of an essential simulation! ‘Demonstration’ has two meaning, namely, introduction and an argued for reinforcement. ‘Presentation’ essentially operates through re-iteration and thence its presentation and re-presentation. The overall consequence of demonstration and presentation/re-presentation is representation or simulation of an historical event or sequence of events or a period of events (some of which, individually, are either effectively simultaneous or sequential to other events, or, collectively, continual or interrupted in their interconnected narration). (14)

	Different narrations of coinciding historical simulations need not be seen to automatically contradict through differences imparted from different genre-expectations, differences in perspective and style, etc! However, various accounts of the same historical phenomenon or phenomena must be isomorphic (since they can never be absolutely divorced from our being in the world together! However, some versions will be better ‘visions’ of the past, present and/or future; possessing a greater value by virtue of their greater self-consistency and their overall contextual coherence [in a cultural/inter-cultural context/world and its collections of cultural facts]). (15)

Historical research is grounded upon the uniformity of the so-called pre-simulated even if its indirect re-presentation can only be simulated and/or re-simulated and never directly represented; implying that history can only be told and shown, never seen! Events unfolding before one can only be appreciated through re-presentation and never representation. Our understanding of the historical dimension is constructed and simulated, shown through the aesthetics of a simulation but never seen per se! On the other hand, the simulation through iterative/re-iterated difference possesses a life of its own hence its representative existence as a form-of-life within the historical mode-of-life. (16)

	Hence the need for historical re-presentation, and, thence the defective nature of historical representation! Once historical narration is re-presented the mis-representational nature of historical narration can be overcome through suitable processes of qualification, etc. Thus the job of the historian is one that is never finished even though they can go home at the end of the day, like everyone else. (17)

3.   A Meta-Historical Appreciation

	Reflections on the apparent form of an historical narration or on the apparent form of a set of historical narrations is always a process of appreciation, namely, an appreciation of style! An appreciation of style is always a process of complexity by virtue of its dialectical ambitions. I.e., the adoption and adaptation of genre, a hybrid-genre or a mix of genres is always a dialectical process by virtue of this space between adoption and adaptation at the level of narrative content. Moreover, this same type of dialectic re-appears in an appreciation of the appreciative style entered into in order to appreciate the style of that narrative content, etc. (18)

	Historical appreciation being an appreciation of the style of the narrative history and never the historical per se! However, from the value of this exercise an existential excess is realized in that particular narration that allows us to apparently judge the historical merit of that historical vision therein simulated. However, comparative evaluation of the same is a better judge of this apparent sense of historical value, i.e. the value to be derived from our historical investigations. (19)

	Historical appreciation is a process that is best left competitive and evolutional in orientation! Because different people and different historians give differing accounts and their interactions can always define a better version of an historical synthesis, even if only incrementally adjusted, since no account can be absolutely non-commensurate (through the apparent unity of the Life-World in its transcendental ideality, and, that this same world ‘is’ shared by all participants even if now dead or currently alive)! History re-told can never be quite the same, yet, through being re-told cannot be absolutely different! Hence this dialectical space (amongst others). (20)

	Historical style is the resolution of a historical problematic or a series of problematics, the distinctive manner of that resolution defining the distinctiveness of that style! Style is the distinctive resolution of the relatively dissonant in a field that is relatively consonant through its overall sense of uniformity. Therein history is conducted. (21)

	Processes of resolution re-forming or reforming the cultural/inter-cultural library of genres of historical re-presentation! Therein, the process of doing history has available to it a collection of genres, potential hybrid-genres and sets of genres as utilized for processes of historical narration! Availability more or less reflecting current fashions in usage. (22)

	Appreciation can also re-evaluate the apparent facticity of factological input! Factual content in meta-narrative appreciation either appears to support inter-narrative content or dis-establishes the same, and v.v. (23)

Factual content and narrative content cannot either be absolutely harmonized nor absolutely non-harmonized! The same dialectical ‘discrepancy’ applies to appreciation of style, and, between theoretical, practical and critical perspectives, etc. Still, the weight or emphasis of our historical investigations resides in the degree of harmony realized despite the ever-present chaotic element in all modes-of-life (and forms-of-life encountered therein). This weight is the overall value of those historical investigations (be they factological, narrative or stylistic in orientation). (24)

4.   Doing History

	Doing history is essentially re-simulating the past and/or the present and/or the future! A version or vision of the past needs to be re-simulated in order for us to historically assess the same through accessing its essential simulation as reviewed-by-us. Similarly, the present needs to be re-simulated in order to appreciate what was present (and what is still present or no longer present). Strangely, the same is operative in forms of future speculation since our vision/s of the future cannot escape our simulations of the past and present in our envisioning of future trends through the apparent continuation and/or non-continuation of past and present trends, etc. (25)

The simulative nature of this enterprise, therefore, is speculative! Be that oriented towards the past, the present and/or the future. (26)

	Although the past, present and/or future is being simulated through ‘re-simulation’ this does not imply doing history is like the writing/reading of a fictitious novel by virtue of the nature of its different reception! In reviewing a novel we suspend our disbelief whereas in our historical speculations we suspend our ontological and epistemological commitments as beliefs in and through the exercise of an overall transcendental suspension. (27)

	Then, through the suspension of the suspension we restore the immediacy of our historical speculations theoretically, practically (through process of action and/or reaction, i.e. response) and critically (through processes of stylistic appraisal and re-appraisal)! The apparent vividness of our historical speculations is directly approached through this ongoing suspension of the suspension… (28)

	Doing history necessitates the existence of the following factors: intentionally experienced events, either directly or indirectly accessed; the presence or reported inventory of intentionally directed intentional traces in the form of texts (either non-classical and/or classical in orientation); genres of historical activity; textually disseminated forms of historical narrative; historians (whether professional or lay) and the reception of the same in the form of historical representations or simulations (as re-simulated textually in the form of a classical text or set of classical texts). Let me briefly define these collectively necessary elements of historical discourse (be that factological, narrative or stylistic in the orientation of its presently present presentation and/or its retrospective re-presentation and/or its prospective to-be-simulated-representation). (29)

Events are phenomena witnessed either directly or indirectly by an agent or set of agents. All phenomena are intentionally constituted since they exist as that-there-for-us through the mediation/immediacy of intentional experience itself! (30)

Depositions are intentional formations deposited upon the fabric of the world. They occur in parallel streams and are deposited as texts (and include the deposition of classical texts through processes of cultural depositions; thence cultural inventories, cultural libraries, etc.). (31)

Genres of historical activity inform the formation of historical texts of a classical nature and give us guide-lines as to how to interpret facts and interconnect the same in the form of narratives along with their appreciation/re-appreciation, etc. Genres are modes of activity that inform patterns of intentional behaviour through their adoption and adaptation. Their orientation, therefore, is essentially meta-textual.  (32)

Historians, either professional or lay in aspiration, develop and disseminate historical versions of reality in order to allow us to appreciate the apparent complexity and integrity of such speculations. Stories are told in order to make sense of the world and disseminate this semblance of value inter-subjectively. (33)

Histories are disseminated as historical texts by historians either professional or lay in aspiration and application. Histories are constructed by historians whose narrative texts, as cultural artifacts, are either relatively in tune with dominant aspects of culture or relatively non-dominant in their then current political tenor. (34)

Finally, reception demands historically receptive audiences and that this essential aspect also needs to be taken into account in our effectively comprehensive account of the formation of historical texts, etc. Different texts are received in different manners in accordance with our perception of their genre-complexions. Historical reception is a different type of task from writing/reading a novel or preparing a financial statement for a company or doing a scientific experiment, etc.   (35)

5.   The Historical Mode-of-Life

	Doing history occurs in an historical mode-of-life wherein historical forms-of-live are speculatively taken into account! By virtue of their intentional simulation these elements taken on a form-of-life that can transform in accordance with the progression of that research, etc. (36)

	The sense of the historical cannot be denied since the very next footstep, whether treated literally or metaphorically, is dependent upon our delineation of past, present and future! To walk means exercising the genre of walking. That genre is historically determined, must be pre-determined historically for us to adopt and adapt the rules of that convention (of walking). Otherwise we could not take a step at any time in the past, present or future! (37)

6.   Conclusion (and Summary in Fifty Propositions)

	The transcendental integrity of the Life-World demands an integral uniformity of phenomenal events within this semblance of transcendental unity! Thence our ability to evaluate the value of historical truth, and, thereafter, re-evaluate the same even though that process, hopefully, is a path of ongoing approximation and re-approximation although this process of investigative evolution does not guarantee that we will get it adequately right! However, we are given both an absolute guarantee that we will never get it absolutely right and an absolute guarantee that we will never get it absolutely wrong! Indeed, the course of our dialectical progress is achieved between these two poles of impossibility. (38)

	Although there is only one world there can only be an infinity of individual histories through dialectical differences in perspective, agency, etc! Still, the value of those histories is re-realized through their re-simulation and re-interaction with other histories. (39)

	All histories, moreover, are commensurable to some degree or other by virtue of this transcendental guarantee of this one-World-of-Life, although our openness to this degree of isomorphic coincidence may make little difference in the additional value brought to our current historical enterprise! By our own efforts we do good history or poor historical research, our ability to ask the right questions being dependent upon what history is already to hand in this regard. (40)

On the other hand, this openness does add a degree of incremental value to some extent or other. In the final analysis doing history must dialectically overcome all forms of distinction be they factological, narrative or stylistic; be they theoretical, practical or critical in orientation; be they situated as events, depositions, genres, historians, histories or processes of reception; be they modes of life or forms of life, etc! (41)

That effectively, a philosophy of history is also a history of philosophy by virtue of the application of genres of activity mutually developed in these two interconnected fields of historical investigation and philosophical investigation (and naturally linked via the commonality of transcendental processes of judgmental evaluation)! As in all things, history is the end-product of a fashionable ethos. Hence the philosophy of history is also a sedimented history of philosophy! (42)

	Judgment of historical matters necessitating the use of historical content be that factological, narrative and/or stylistic. An historical intent determining and limiting the nature of the evaluative processes therein enacted. (43)

	Act of historical judgment being made as a judgment from, or from within, or between processes of conceptual simulation. Hence all historical simulation must be conceptualized as a necessary condition to trans-conceptual processes of judgment! (44)

	The realized weight of an historical simulation reflecting the realized richness of those processes as arrived at. This overall existential excess allowing our proceedings to successfully compete or not successfully compete with other historical reading of the same historical reality in question! (45)

	A simulation of the historical can only be as good as the quality of that simulation. Thence the need for all the facts relevant to a certain event being made available to that historian. (46)

	Thence the need for evidence and the adequate reliability of that interpreted evidence!  The re-realized ability to re-iterate evidence, narrative consistency and stylistic openness re-informing our appreciation of that evidence. (47) 

Transcendental uniformity of the Life-World in its transcendental-ideality permits the re-simulation of evidential replication. Intentional behaviour is deposited in the form of texts, those texts can be re-iterated along with all other texts be they historical in orientation or otherwise. (48)

	Hence our doing history is a repetitive affair through the re-iteration of texts within the re-iteration of their associated textual narratives, and v.v! However, an isomorphic core survives re-iteration, yet, an iterative differential re-invests a new sense of difference into our perception of that ‘same’ history that allows us ‘to do history’! (49)

	Hence our doing history is a dialectical process through the creation/re-creation of an iterative differential realized through an ongoing differentiation of iteration itself, and that in essence itself is historical in tenor! Thus a philosophy of history is also a history of philosophy, etc…! (50)

	A summary in fifty propositions can be obtained by attending to those propositions highlighted in bold!
		      					    Noël Tointon, Sydney, 18.5.07.