Interpretation of History
D. Method and attitude in knowledge
3. KAIROS AND LOGOS AS A PROBLEM OF BEING A. Reality and fate
From the point of view of reality, the following objection can be raised to the whole train of thought which starts out from knowledge: Should not the real be grasped in knowledge, and is not the real a unity? Is not therefore every decision of the subject—subjective and thus untrue?
Does not the impossibility of truth follow from the historical character of knowledge? Is not the dethronement of the absolute subject at the same time a dethronement of the knowing subject?
Indeed, one could go further and say: Is not the pragmatic theory of knowledge renewed therewith; is not knowledge robbed of its material significance in the last analysis? Of course, when one speaks thus, one ought not to cite the usual biological pragmatism, but one might perhaps speak of a religious pragmatism. Let us examine this idea for a moment: Obviously a religious pragmatism would be one in which the norm for the formation of concepts was the attitude to God. The decision regarding the Unconditioned would be the origin of the formation of concepts, which would have no other meaning than to justify this decision and attitude. If we assume this statement to be true, then it would mean that the subject in its formation of concepts does not want to express anything subjective, but, on the contrary, just that object to which it sacrifices its subjectivity, the Unconditioned. As soon as pragmatism were to become religious, therefore, it would transcend itself, for to speak truth regarding one’s attitude to the
Unconditioned, would mean to speak truth altogether. The level would be reached in which the contrast of theory and practice, that is, pragmatism would be eliminated.
Yet it is necessary to answer the questions directly and positively. It is necessary to examine the concept of reality itself.
In this enterprise it is expedient to start from certain solutions which can be found in Hegel on the one side, in Marx on the other. Both are of outstanding importance for our problem. Both have attempted to unite ideal norms and historical reality, Hegel. by making history subject to ideality in interpreting history in logical terms; Marx, by making ideality subject to history in interpreting ideas as products of historical situations. It has never yet been shown with sufficient
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clarity that in both the turn toward a fundamentally new definition of the relationship between reality and truth is present, namely in the direction of a dynamic concept of truth and reality.
For Hegel the ultimate reality of history is rational in it, i.e., the rational concept which realizes itself in history. The important thing, however, is this, that the idea, or better, the series of ideas, is realized in such a way that it enters into a concrete historical form, not as a thought of
somebody, but as the essential reality of an historical situation. Hegel calls the decisive
historical power the Volksgeist (the spirit of a tribe or nation). In it the idea is incorporated. This raises a serious problem. The tribe or nation, aside from its spirit, is a biological-sociological reality with many-sided will to life and power, and consequently its relationship to any idea is ambiguous. The group can serve the idea as well as resist it. How does the fusion of vital and ideal tendencies take place? According to Hegel, in this way: the idea shrewdly uses even the resisting tendencies in order to reach its goal. But the picture of the shrewd idea is no solution of the problem. The idea in itself is not an acting creature; it becomes powerful only in unity with acting men. But this unity is possible only, if there is no real resistance to be overcome by the idea. The idea has no power of overcoming; it is powerless in itself. The solution of the problem from the point of view of Hegelian thought is the doctrine of the prestabilized harmony of idea and history, and there can be no doubt that this thought is in the background of Hegel’s picture.
This, however, means historical determinism, and therefore the destruction of real history because the new, the unexpected, the "leap" belong essentially to history.
In Marx—the genuine, not the materialistically mutilated Marx—productive society is the ultimate reality and ideas are only reflections of a special situation of society in the mirror of intellect. The totality of such ideas is the ideology of a social group. The word ideology has become more and more a designation of thoughts that are used by a social group in order to justify its political and economic power, especially in situations where this power contradicts the actual historic situation. This is not the original meaning of the word ideology, but a use of it for purposes of agitation. We must admit, however, that this use of the word is not entirely
unjustified, since from the very beginning it was meant to question the objective truth of concepts.
If ideology designates the true expression of a certain situation of society and the situation of society at the time is the real thing, then the word ideology contains no negation of the idea of truth, insofar as truth demands the agreement of perception and reality. Only this is new that reality itself is interpreted as something changeable in its essence. Consequently the concepts in which the essence of reality is grasped, must themselves be changeable, if truth is claimed for them. This important problem is implied in the word ideology, but the answer that has been given thus far is insufficient. First of all the formal objection must be raised that the assertion of the ideological character of thinking must allow at least one exception, namely this assertion itself. If this also is nothing but ideology it is only the expression of a special social situation and cannot even try to claim universal validity. Furthermore, if we identify reality with social
structure we lose the reality of nature as well as of past history. This was by no means the
intention of Marx, who agreed completely with a belief in objective sciences, but what position this belief takes toward the concept of ideology, what ideology is in the true sense, what
objective truth is,—these questions Marx did not ask himself; and later Marxism was not even capable of it as a result of its materialistic naïveté.
And yet it was no accident that the question of the dynamic character of truth and reality was asked on the basis of intense activity by the leader of a movement for which that was a life- question, although it might remain only an interesting problem for the mere observer: the dependence of the intellectual life on the social and economic situation. A victory for the movement was not possible so long as its opponents could maintain the sanctity of their
intellectual creations. The concept of ideology was a weapon of demonic power for the purpose of destroying all the hallowed truths of bourgeois and feudal culture. And it is easy to
understand that Socialism does not renounce such a weapon despite the obvious difficulty of this concept. Moreover, it serves Socialism in other ways than as a weapon. The numerous
endeavors which group around the concept of proletarian culture find there an ideological point of departure. It is urgent that "bourgeois science" should pay considerably more attention to these theories than before, not in order to "refute" them, but, on the contrary, to understand them, and that means to continue to develop them.
The further development is now to be tried in the following direction. The third stratum in knowledge besides pure form and pure material, the qualitatively changeable, actually historical stratum is to be interpreted not only from the point of view of knowledge, but from reality as well. Starting out from knowledge, we have defined it as the sphere of decision, and moreover we have seen that the decision is a decision with respect to the Unconditioned, and we had
spoken of the ambiguity of every decision. In this concept of ambiguity we had found the root of individuality, the place where individuality gains metaphysical meaning. This assertion,
however, is one-sided in that it starts out with the individual in his detachment from the community and world and therefore presupposes an abstract concept of freedom. We meant, however, only the freedom which is rooted in fate, and we have expressed this many times.
Nevertheless the element of freedom implied in fate received primary emphasis. The time has come to ask about the element of fate implied in freedom. This question leads us directly to the question of the nature of reality. It becomes clear: In the "decision," the deciding ego is not opposite to reality but remains connected with it. If it were otherwise, the false presumption of an "absolute subject" would be defeated, but the arbitrarily relative subject would have taken its place and thereby the idea of truth would have been destroyed.
Then again, if decision is simultaneously taken to mean freedom and fate, isolation and connection, this failure is made impossible. The same can be shown in another way: if the
accidentally filled subject were to take the place of the empty absolute subject in knowledge, the sphere of decision would not be reached at all, for subjectivity is given by nature; it is pre-
intellectual, pre-personal, the material of decision but not actual decision. It is especially important to protect the doctrine of the historical quality of truth against the reproach that it
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furthers subjectivity in scientific work. Subjectivity is a prehistoric category. The historical categories are freedom and fate. Where fate is discussed, the connection of the free deed—only what is free has fate—with the whole of existence is recognized, but not with existence insofar as it rests in itself but insofar as it stands before the Unconditioned. Only where this relation of existence is meant, rather than that which constantly vacillates between accident and necessity can one speak of fate. Just as freedom stands objectively before the Unconditioned, so fate stands objectively before it. Both are one in every event which constitutes history.
The free act of the decision in knowledge is therefore one with the fate of the existing thinker, in whom the deed occurs. The free decision in knowledge, at the same time, is the expression of the fate in which the thinker stands :—presupposing that his deed is free and not arbitrary and that his connection with reality is fate and not mechanical necessity. Knowledge is true insofar as it is subjectively free, and objectively fate. Then and only then is it the expression of
existence and thus in agreement with its object. Even customary speech knows thoughts which are the fate of a time, and means thereby those thoughts wherein the actual profundity of an epoch, its position before the Unconditioned is given creative, i.e., free expression.
In the third level of knowledge therefore the fatefulness of reality and the depth of life are effective. Reality also has an aspect which is subject to neither an empirical nor a rational necessity. It is fate and is therefore recognized only in the freedom of decision. But where such free—not arbitrary decision occurs, there this aspect of reality, fate, is effective. The third element of knowledge thus corresponds to a third element of being. The transcendental stratum of knowledge corresponds to the transcendental stratum of being.