QuestionsDoes history have a direction?History repeats the same thing in other forms: "eadem, sed aliter"
Does history have a direction?No direction

History repeats the same thing in other forms: "eadem, sed aliter"

Eadem, sed aliter

Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 · 1860Life swings between suffering and boredom.
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What it claims

The motto of history is "eadem, sed aliter": the same thing, differently. It has no goal or plan, but it keeps a value, that of being the reasoned memory of the human race.

Why

History deals only with unique cases, and under changing costumes the same human nature recurs: no plan, no progress.

The same idea through history
Arthur Schopenhauer1819This chapter extends his central thesis: the world is will, a blind striving that repeats itself without aim. History therefore cannot have an aim either (see the argument on the worst of all possible worlds).
In short

"History repeats the same thing in other forms: "eadem, sed aliter"" is an argument by Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Representation, II, ch. 38 "On History" (1844; 2nd ed. 1859), 1819) on the question "Does history have a direction?" (answer: no direction). Its claim: The motto of history is "eadem, sed aliter": the same thing, differently. It has no goal or plan, but it keeps a value, that of being the reasoned memory of the human race. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P5). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 3 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

The World as Will and Representation, II, ch. 38 "On History" (1844; 2nd ed. 1859)
Valid with an implicit premise

This short chapter is written against the philosophers of history of his day, especially the Hegelians, of whom Schopenhauer speaks harshly. He holds three things. History is not a science, because it has no general concepts: it merely juxtaposes unique facts. Trying to read in it an overall plan toward a goal is an illusion: only individuals have lives that have unity. Finally, what history always shows is the same human nature, with its faults, in other costumes. Note: he judges the Hegelians with irony; we cite mainly his arguments.

P1The material of history is the particular in its particularity and contingency: what is once and then is no more for ever. It therefore lacks the character of science, which knows the particular by the general.
P2Only the individual, not the human race, has a real and immediate unity of consciousness: the unity of the life course of the human race, or of a people, is a pure fiction.
P3From beginning to end, history only repeats the same thing under other names and in other dress: what remains is the nature of man, his faults and his qualities, not a progress.
P4Philosophers who "construct" history always end with a prosperous, well-ordered state, with technology and industry, and at most with an improvement of the intellect: that is the only one possible, since what is moral remains essentially unaltered.
P5 · implicit premiseIf history is made of unique facts with no real unity, repeats the same human nature, and the moral does not change, then it has no overall plan and no progress to discover.
Therefore the motto of history is "eadem, sed aliter": the same thing, differently. It has no goal or plan, but it keeps a value, that of being the reasoned memory of the human race.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P5, the computer finds a world where history is made of unique facts and repeats constant human traits, but where a slow, real improvement, for example in violence, occurs over centuries.
Valid with P5. P5 is the link that moves from four findings (unique facts, no unity of the human race, repetition, constant morals) to a denial (no plan, no progress). Without it, one can grant the four findings without excluding a long-term progress too slow to be visible. Note: P4 is a claim about humanity's moral history that historians and psychologists dispute.
Analogy. A spectator watching a puppet show whose costumes change from act to act. The plays are called "Rome", "Byzantium", "Paris"; the puppets move as always. For Schopenhauer, whoever has seen one has seen the subject of the others.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Hegel 1837 · attacks the conclusion

The history of the world is the progress of the consciousness of freedom, a progress whose necessity we must recognise. The passions of individuals are its instruments, and reason is realised in it: history has a meaning.

Schopenhauer replies
see the argument
Schopenhauer Passage by Schopenhauer, written against this thesis
Schopenhauer answers that all those who construct the course of the world in this way have not grasped the main truth of all philosophy: that at all times it is the same, that all becoming is apparent, that only the Ideas remain, and that time is ideal.
The debate goes on (our summary) The disagreement is not only about facts, but about what is real: for Schopenhauer (who invokes Plato and Kant), becoming is an appearance; for Hegel, nature repeats itself, but spirit brings forth something new (same Introduction). Schopenhauer thus brings history closer to nature, Hegel takes it away from it. (Our summary.)
Where the debate stands (our summary)Core disagreement: is historical becoming a place of meaning (Hegel) or a repetition of the same nature (Schopenhauer)? Each starts from a metaphysics the other refuses. Open point.
S
Steven Pinker 2011 · attacks premise 4

Historical data on homicides, wars and torture show a decline of violence over centuries. This is not the same dress on the same nature: customs, institutions and reason have really changed average moral behaviour.

Schopenhauer replies
Schopenhauer Earlier position by Schopenhauer
Schopenhauer holds that the possible improvements are those of technique and intellect, the moral remaining essentially unaltered, and that the moral, which is what matters, lies in the direction of each individual's will.
The debate goes on (our summary) Pinker measures behaviours (observed violence); Schopenhauer speaks of the direction of the will, which statistics do not measure. Each can therefore say the other changes the subject. Pinker's critics also dispute his figures and his reading, for example on the wars of the twentieth century. (Our summary.)
Where the debate stands (our summary)Core disagreement: is moral progress measured by behaviours or by inner dispositions? The data on violence are themselves debated. Open point.
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R. G. Collingwood 1946 · attacks premise 1

History is a form of knowledge in its own right: it is not reducible to adding up singular facts, because the historian re-thinks the thoughts of past agents. It has its own method and rigour, different from those of the natural sciences, and is no less serious than they are.

Schopenhauer replies
Schopenhauer Schopenhauer, in the same text
Schopenhauer grants history a value of its own: it is the rational self-consciousness of the human race. Only through it does a people become fully conscious of itself, as a person does through memory.
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R. G. Collingwood 1936
Collingwood grants that a science of mind may establish regularities and recurrences. But it cannot guarantee they hold beyond the historical period from which its facts come: behaviours depend on social orders, which are historical and change. The "same" human trait would thus not be a fixed nature.
The debate goes on (our summary) Collingwood and Schopenhauer thus agree on the usefulness of history, but not on its nature: for Collingwood it grasps dated individual thoughts, for Schopenhauer it shows only the same human traits. Collingwood answers that observed regularities depend on an age. The disagreement is about what the historian understands in reading the past. (Our summary.)
Where the debate stands (our summary)Core disagreement: does history reveal singular thoughts, intelligible in themselves, or always the same human nature? Open point.