Man and World 1 8 : 3 9 - 5 4 (1985)

9 Martinus Nifhoff Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands

DOES HISTORICITY REQUIRE A DIFFERENT METAPHYSICS?

JOHN W. BURBIDGE
Trent University

To affirm historicity is to surrender classical metaphysics. The two are

not consistent with each other. If there is to be a metaphysics of
historicity, then, metaphysics must be radically transformed.
This, m y thesis, requires defence. In the first place historicity must
be shown the direct antithesis of classical metaphysics. To have one
or other feature in the first incompatible with some accidental result
of the second is not sufficient. Rather, the characteristic by which an
individual or event becomes historically significant must be trivial and
unimportant in the study of being qua being. And what metaphysics
takes as normative must be quite irrelevant to a theory of history.
Once we have established this incompatibility, we can in the second
place suggest the changes that an historical metaphysics would intro-
duce into the traditional philosophical disciplines of logic, ontology,
epistemology, philosophy of nature, ethics, and philosophy of language.
Not only will each function in a new way, but the relative importance
of each within a comprehensive philosophical perspective will be altered.
And that alteration will affect not only how we think but also how we act.
My paper thus falls into two main parts. The first will defend my
thesis of incompatibility; the second will develop some of its implica-
tions.

Historicity rejects the maxim of Dionysius of Helicarnasus that "histo-

ry is philosophy teaching by examples." What happens is not simply
an instafice of a general rule or law of human behaviour. An action,
whether by an individual, a political institution or a social group, is
decisive. Into a situation formed by the past it introduces something

39
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new. The various constraints are confronted, and resolved into a distinc-
tive and singular happening. To decipher what is significant about the
happening, we cannot ignore the novelty that the action achieves. It is
unique both in terms of the specific setting in which it takes place and
in terms of its contribution - its decisive initiative. What makes the
action historical, therefore, is its unique individuality.
No historical action can repeat something already present or past.
For the intention to copy is itself a new feature, and the interaction
of the later act with the setting produced by the earlier one results in
novel consequences. Each action is novel.
This has, however, an important implication. Not only is there no
actual precedent for what has occurred, but reflection can acknowledge
only the difference between this happening and what has gone before.
Before it happened, the novelty was not even entertained as a p o s
sibility. And although the connections between the action and its
prior setting may be noticed once it has taken place, in none of those
connections can reflection identify a relation between what is unique
in the action and something that has made it happen in just that way.
After all, the process of identifying such a relation would need to ap-
peal to a general principle or rule; yet the uniqueness of the historical
action rules out the appropriateness of such a principle.
To characterize this feature o f historical action I will use the terms
"actual" and "possible," not in Aristotle's sense, but in one suggested
by Kant. 1 An actual is something that occurs temporally - an event or
an action. A possibility, on the other hand, is something general - a
principle that is thought, a condition that is in some general way con-
nected to its consequent. In this sense, an actual is singular and in-
dividual; it happens in time and is thus simply a point of reference.
A possible is general and universal. It can be instantiated in time, but
its intension extends further than this one instantiation.
Using this vocabulary, then, we can say that an historical action
shows itself to be, in fact, possible. But prior to its occurrence there
was no possibility that pointed towards its decisive uniqueness. The
possibility came into existence at the m o m e n t the action happened.
It had no ontological status, even in the mind, independent of that
actuality.
In other words, something general and universal has a beginning in
time. And that beginning is brought about by something uniquely
individual.
Once the historical event occurs, the actual features of its deter-
minate setting can be seen to be constituents of its uniqueness - it
 41

is distinctively connected to them. But prior to its coming to be, there

was no possibility that serves as a necessary c o n d i t i o n - no prerequisite
that in general restricts or defines what the action c a n b e in that setting.
On the other hand, the action itself generates possibilities. Reflection
takes place on what has happened. In thought the novelty is brought
together with other things that have happened: its setting, previous
actualities that are remembered, events that occurred at the same time.
This synthesis is an operation of generality - looking at two or more
terms within a single context. In this perspective similarities and like-
nesses may be noted, and differences explicitly demarcated. Reflection,
using the resources of possibility, thus brings to consciousness the
uniqueness of the action; but it does so by a process of drawing analo-
gies - noting similarities and differences, and then categorizing the
relations between like and unlike. In this way the synthesis of reflec-
tion does not simply gather an historical diversity into an indiscrimi-
nate collection. The individual actions are ordered into patterns or
configurations, their peculiar features interlock, and they are seen to
modify each other. By means of the generality of reflection, the syn-
thesis is transformed into an integration. This general or universal per-
spective comprehends a totality o f unique actions. Building on reflec-
tion, comprehension thus seeks to articulate the disjunctive difference
of each individual while maintaining their collective incorporation into
a totality. This is the goal of comprehensive consistency; by incorporat-
ing a number of unique singulars, an integrated individuality is achieved.
While historical actions are actual, reflection and comprehension
occur in the realm of thought - of possibility. They become actual,
however, in speech, action and behaviour, for speech reproduces in the
public forum the generality of thought. Through language each in-
dividual's reflective response to historical action comes to be chal-
lenged by those of others. Since the range of the synthesis and the
configuration of consistency may vary for different reflecting individ-
uals, one actuality may initiate a number of possibilities. These inter-
act in the sphere of public discourse, producing a new level of incon-
sistency that demands resolution. The debate never reaches consensus.
Not only does a surd remain in the diversity of reflective syntheses
and comprehensive standards. The ongoing flow of time also intro-
duces uniquely new actions into the forum where the debate occurs.
That forum we call tradition, for it carries the past over into the present
and future.
Let me summarize: Historicity involves a dynamic relation in which
unique actions, actual in time, evoke reflection and in which the quest
42

for comprehensive or general consistency provides the context into

Which unrepeatable actions introduce their novelty. Because the reflec-
tive tradition is in principle prevented from becoming fully comprehen-
sive, it expects to be surprised. Not only can it never articulate possibili-
ties that will exhaustively characterize subsequent historical acts and
events. But it is precisely the unanticipated in the future that alone will
be historically significant.
To this point I have been developing a general story. Each tradition
has its own distinctive character. I have recounted a sequence from
unique actual to general possible that abstracts the similarities of
various traditions from their distinctive integrating dynamic. That
done, I can suggest a feature that is in some sense c o m m o n to all.
What makes a theory of historicity distinctive is that, within its pur-
view, singular actuals initiate general possibilities. The possible as
universal cannot be a necessary condition, initiating what is ultimately
significant in what is the actual as individual. But what is uniquely
actual is a necessary condition for the universals generated through
reflection and debate. Prior to an action, these general possibilities do
not exist. What uniquely happens is created, coming to be, as it were,
out of nothing.
! now turn to the contrary position of classical metaphysics. Here
I will try to find a general feature that is c o m m o n to all. In such a
schema, justice will not necessarily be done to each specific meta-
physical school. My purpose is simply to identify the most radical
feature o f the tension between metaphysics and historicity.
Classical metaphysics is no less the product o f reflection; but its
focus is not directed towards an open-ended integration of unique,
temporally distinct individuals. It seeks instead those aspects of reality
that are in some way universal and necessary. Descriptive metaphysics,
writes Strawson, aims "to lay bare the most general features of our
conceptual structure. ''2 For Whitehead, "speculative philosophy is
the endeavour to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general
ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be inter-
preted. ''3 And Aristotle says that the characteristic " o f knowing all
things must belong to him who has in the highest degree universal
knowledge; for he knows in a sense all the instances that fall under
the universal. ,,4
Let me suggest what this involves. In its investigation, classical meta-
physics, no less than historicity, starts from what is temporally actual.
But the goal of reflection is to discover its conditions. What was re-
quired for it to come to be? What made it possible? These prerequisites
 43

are not themselves contingent, actual events. "The proper object of un-
qualified scientific knowledge," writes Aristotle, "is something which
cannot be other than it is. ''s They are general conditions that are in
some way instantiated in the actual event to be explained. They are
ontologically independent of its contingency.
Even though the reflection of classical metaphysics starts from the
actual world, it does not remain satisfied with its contingency or
uniqueness. What is accidental (or distinctive) about each event is re ~
flectively cancelled by thought because it is inessential. This cancelling
procedure continues until thought comes upon those aspects of the
actuality which cannot be set aside. The results - or what cannot be
not thought - are the fundamental or essential principles governing
all reality. And they are what is most significant metaphysically. In-
deed Aristotle indicates this significance by restricting the term "actual-
ity" to these forms or essences. His distinctive use of the vocabulary
of actuality for generals, and possibility or potentiality for the prin-
ciple of individuation indicates that the Aristotelian metaphysics does
not function within the perspective of historicity.
Schelling characterizes this procedure by referring to two Greek
negatives. "mO" and " o u k . ''6 The former is used primarily in the sub-
junctive mood, expressing situations that are in some way contrary to
fact. The latter is the more straightforward negation of indicative as-
sertion. Metaphysics, says Schelling following Kant, uses the subjunc-
tive negation. Not-thinking some contingency is not an actual event,
but contrary-to-fact as a pure possibility. As one such possibility is
added to another in the progressive exercise of critical reflection, the
result is equally a pure possibility. It is generality created by thought,
and subsists independent of the temporal world of singular actualities.
The result of metaphysical reflection is universal. Whether called
actuality or possibility, what is significant covers a number of individ-
uals and is instantiated in them. As that which cannot be not-thought
it is not capable of being otherwise, and hence necessary. As the ulti-
mate achievement of scientific knowledge, which wants to rise above
contingent fact to universal law, principles and essences, it provides
the ultimately significant characterization of the world.
Using the Kantian vocabulary, then, reflection concludes that atem-
poral possibilities are prior to temporal actualities and in some way
make them come to be. What is individual is limited by the range of
generals and universals; and what appears to deviate from that limita-
tion is not significant but simply a by-product of that generality. The
universal thus necessarily conditions what comes to be in time.
44

Note the inversion that has taken place. In its search for knowledge,
classical metaphysics starts from temporal actuals and moves to general
possibles - the same direction taken by an historical tradition. Its con-
clusion, however, is that the universals explain the singulars. ~ What
thought identifies as general is ontologically more ultimate than the
individual events. They are not mere abstractions of thought, but
principles, actually constitutive of the world. Indeed, in the most
extreme form of determinism, there is no action or event that is not
in every significant respect an instance of such a general principle.
For classical metaphysics, then, what is universal and necessary is
ontologically prior to the singular and unique. In Aristotle's language,
the generality of actuality or form becomes individuated in the po-
tentiality of matter. In Kant's language the universal of possibility is
instantiated in temporal actualities. Generality is the necessary condi-
tion for uniqueness. But except for the external and inessential pro-
cess of reflection, singulars can never lead to generals. Even in reflec-
tion, they do not generate such universals but are simply clues within
a process of discovery.
My thesis has been established. Historicity and classical metaphysics
have been shown to be direct opposites. For one requires that unique
singulars ontologically precede generals; the other that universals on-
tologically precede individuals. In the first, temporal acts provide the
necessary condition for reflective possibilities; in the second, formal
or generalizable actualities provide the necessary conditions for what
will be individuated. And each explicitly excludes the conditioning
relation espoused by the other. Any effort to integrate them without
taking account of this fundamental contradiction will not easily suc-
ceed.

II

The sharp contradiction between historicity and classical metaphysics

has implications for philosophy. One cannot simply transpose to one
the methods and conclusions of the other. In particular, a metaphysics
of historicity will have a distinctive logic. We need to characterize this
in some detail before proceeding to further thematic motifs in on-
tology, epistemology, the philosophy of nature, ethics, and the phi-
losophy of language.
Historical reflection starts with unique, actual individuals. These
are to be combined in a disciplined thought that takes account of what
 45

is distinctive and original in the given reality. The two terms of the
synthesis cannot be analyzed into their abstract similarities and dif-
ferences without betraying the fundamental genius of historical phi-
losophy. Rather than relying on the principle of identity, then, thought
is confronted by two events that have actually occurred. Their syn-
thesis is something added to the original realities. Through the syn-
thesis thought determines whether the two can be connected within
a single configuration. Further analogies may bring this configuration
together with others and with new individual events so that the inte-
gration becomes ever more comprehensive and more complex.
The synthesis introduced by reflective thought may, however, result
in a contrary conclusion. Reflection may determine that the two events
are not compatible, that a new event disrupts rather than expands a
comprehensive perspective. The result may be called a negative analogy
- a synthesis in which the terms exclude each other such that the re-
flective thinker must opt for one or the other. There is no integrated
perspective in which both can hold.
This has significant implications for the law of identity. The uni-
versals of classical metaphysics prescind out of a diverse multitude
something common, to determine at least some of those actualities
that cannot be otherwise. Strict identity is not only the criterion used
by reflection in this procedure but also the essential determination of
reality's laws. An historical universal is no less a relation between a
number of diverse individuals. But that relation is uniquely determi-
nate. What distinguishes the individuals also characterizes the general
configuration by which they are comprehended. The identity of a
tradition, then, is in no way strict similarity. It is the integration within
which analogous events allow themselves to fit together into a single,
interconnected configuration.
A related metamorphosis happens to the law of contradiction. In
classical thought a contradiction concerns two logical possibilities.
These turn out to be strict opposites when applied to the same entity.
This outright contradiction rules out their conjoint actuality. Where
unique actuals are logically prior to possibles, however, contradiction
can not be a matter of pure thought. It becomes a negative analogy
- where the synthesis of two individual actualities cannot be main-
tained and they break apart into exclusive entities. Each one has its
own character and can develop its own identity, but the two cannot
be consistently connected without abandoning significant character-
istics of one or the other.
When such a contradiction appears there is no middle way that can
46

incorporate both sides. The interpreter or reflective agent is faced with

a decision. For his reflective interpretation will itself become an actual
event that will provide the setting for future action and reflection.
In that interpretation he must choose one side or the other. Hence
the law of excluded middle does not concern truth and falsity (whether
a possibility is actual or not) but rather choice and moral decision
(whether an actual is to be taken up into a tradition as legitimate pos-
sibility or not).
Interpreted in this way the principles of identity, of contradiction,
and of excluded middle perform functions analogous to the laws of
classical metaphysics. They set the logical limits for a metaphysics of
historicity. In setting limits, however, they do not determine the more
specific content. Any action performed by a member of a tradition
may be integrated into that tradition. But not all such actions are con-
sistent with that tradition. How, then, are the limits of consistency to
be constituted? What would decide whether an action could be inte-
grated into a tradition or not?
The answer cannot be given a priori, else the criteria would be uni
versal possibilities. The process of assessment is quite different. An
event takes place; when it has occurred, reaction and reflection brings
together that event with an integrated tradition; that synthesis shows
incompatibilities and awkward connections. Thus reflection may dis H
cover that two actuals cannot fit together in the same configuration.
Yet it may, in response, propose a different pattern of connection
which transforms the incompatibles into compatibles. Subsequent
debate between different proposals and responses will in time resolve
the question whether the novelty is to be accepted even though it trans-
figures, or rejected because it disfigures, the tradition.
There is thus no single answer to the question of consistency. Each
one who responds has his individual assessment that will be taken up
into his decisions and actions. Within the community a plurality of
answers will be debated and examined. A novelty and a response that
over time is excluded from the community of debate is shown to be
inconsistent with the integrity of the tradition. One that is accepted
transforms the configuration by requiring a new pattern of intercon-
nection. Not only is its consistency with the past established thereby,
but it introduces a new context for subsequent assessments of con-
sistency.
In the dynamic of assessment one can see two contrary operations
taking place. On the one hand, an actuality accepted as consistent
specifies more precisely the integrated character of that consistency.
 47

As more specified the tradition becomes more determinate, restricting

the range within which future events will be accepted. To this extent
it sets out limits for future synthetic analogies. But this is balanced
on the other hand by the fact that each event is something unique and
individual; it does not simply embody a preceding possibility. There is
that which no preceding possibility could anticipate. Therefore the
comprehensive integration is also generalized beyond anything con-
tained in the past. A wider range of options and perspectives is intro-
duced. Having been accepted into the tradition, the new reality ex-
tends the determinate thrust of the tradition more generally.
The logic of historicity contains a pattern of elaboration and growth.
Within a tradition, diverse and distinct schools and sub-traditions will
become specified. The comprehensive configuration will not be dis-
rupted as long as those schools continue the debate concerning the
consistency or lack of consistency of various novelties. In fact, by
actualizing concrete connections within the community, that debate
will itself determine its distinctive integration. For it confirms that
there is no self-identical uniform standard to settle all disputes. Its
ongoing dynamic renders actual in society the analogical pattern of
historical logic. By talking to each other the schools acknowledge that
they stand in the same general tradition; in differing they manifest the
unique distinctness of specific actualities.
There is, however, another side to the historical development. At
the same time that the living tradition becomes more and more com-
plex internally, traditions and events are being rejected as inconsistent.
What is excluded does not necessarily disappear into nothingness. It
may become an independent tradition, at times appealing to the same
past, but using a different configuration of consistency. Thus develop
not simply different species of the same genus, but distinct genera
with their own independent integrations. The longer traditions develop
without communication, the more different they become, ceasing over
time to reflect at all the same past.
Common law provides a model of this assessment through consisten-
cy with the past. A case with new, distinctive features must fit a pattern
of precedents. But the judge has no a priori standards. His decision
determines whether the new event will be accepted or excluded from
the legal standards of a society. In contrast codified law, like classical
metaphysics, spells out the general standards according to which in-
dividual cases are to be assessed.
Because the identity of integration and the contradiction of exclu-
sion are not determined prior to the event and do not form a structure
48

of atemporal possibilities, there is no basis in a historical logic for uni --

versal conditionals that hold whether or not the antecedent be actual.
As a result an historical logic cannot use the material conditional, nor
the syllogisms o f modern logic based on modus ponens. Nor can a logic
be based on the ultimate priority of universal categorical judgements,
whether positive or negative. Inferences of consistency are immediate,
given the synthesis of simple conjunction. But they cannot be extra-
polated into either a categorical or a hypothetical syllogism. And they
cannot become the axioms of a system. Therefore deduction has no
significant role to play. Nor does induction, for the derivation of uni-
versals from a sample of instances is irrelevant.
However, a general integration may be affirmed as characterizing a
tradition, and the range of possibilities consistent with that general
can be specified. This range will reflect habitual patterns of consistency
already present in the tradition, and will show how the great variety
of actuals fit together into an integrated configuration. Thus the logic
of historicity will embody what Peirce calls abduction or hypothesis
- positing a comprehensive pattern of connections and, through re-
flection, assessing the way it integrates known actuals, a
Some questions remain. Can there be an historical ontology? What
constitutes knowledge in an historical metaphysics? With its concentra-
tion on history and community can it do justice to natural law and
science? Does ethics succumb to a thorough-going relativism, lacking
objective norms? What would be the nature of language in an historical
culture? A brief indication of some thematic answers to these questions
will occupy the balance o f the paper.
First, ontology. The habits with which we immediately recognize
consistency and integration and thereby assess an hypothesis are not
universal. They are fundamentally determined by a c o m m u n i t y and
operate within its traditions. For members of the society, they will
function almost like intuitions. But they will be foreign and counter-
intuitive to others.
Within the logic of historicity, then, there is no universal ontology.
The standards of consistency do not have an independent actuality.
Nor can there be a science of being qua being. For whatever would be
so universal would be the most trivial of all trivialities. The place of
ontology is taken by a philosophy of traditions, whose task it is to
characterize the habitual integrations and senses of consistency that
render an historical community determinate. Ontology thus becomes
a study of pluralism - a sympathetic appreciation of the different
processes of assessment and debate that take place in different socie-
 49

ties. Because all traditions are open to the future, it will never reach
definitive conclusions. As new events occur and new debates result,
it will have to reconsider. Therefore, the philosophy of traditions will
be a science incomplete in principle.
Second, epistemology. Significant in the actual world are unique,
temporal individuals. These cannot be characterized by descriptions
that take an intuited whole and articulate it by means of a series of
general qualities or predicates that have in some sense a simultaneous
reference. Any action involves an individual. Names or definite noun
phrases serve to identify him as agent. An account of the relevant
past will specify the social setting. And the normal sentence will re-
quire a verb of action, not a bare copula. In other words, the temporal
order of the sentences is significant, subsequent statements intro-
ducing new material that had been irrelevant to what preceded. Thus
narrative replaces description as the typical characterization of the
world. Whether a narrative is appropriate will be determined through
reflection on the event. The order of statements must follow the tem-
poral pattern of the events. The individual needs to be indicated in
terms of his historical antecedents - his parents or his teachers. His
action will be connected with accounts of its impact on its immediate
context. Such statements will reflect both an immediate awareness of
the event and a reflective sense o f how the various individual actions
may be connected - what Dray calls " h o w possibly. ''9 Thus, the units
of knowledge will be sequences of statements, not judgements. And
whether they are exhaustively adequate will always be open to debate.
When one goes b e y o n d simply reporting to explaining, once again a
significant adjustment is required. The individual action or story cannot
be understood by subsuming it under universal laws. Rather it must be
combined with the tradition in a consistent way. Stories from the past
may be used to provide analogues that show a fundamental integrity
between the explicandum and its antecedents. Earlier events may thus
serve as types of the later ones, tying them into the same tradition. The
more commonly acknowledged the story used to explain, the more
universally acceptable is the explanation, for it shows the consistency
of the new with the old, while exposing its uniqueness.
Third, a philosophy of nature. The description I have given of the
growth of a tradition, by which species develop within a genus, and
genera become independent of one another, provides some analogues
to the way biologists have characterized evolution. In the life sciences,
the history of vegetable and animal species can be written only after
the event; and significant similarities and differences are established
50

on the basis of what has actually occurred. In the biological develop-

ment there are no laws that can become the basis for an exact calcula-
tion of the future. For all that a mutation presupposes habits of con-
sistency, its novelty appears out of nothing. Evolutionary theory fits
more easily with an historical metaphysics than with the classical
theory of atemporal laws.
In the inorganic world there have been attempts to write a history
of nature that traces the development of geological structures, as well
as the increasing complexity o f physical laws and chemical compounds.
The laws are patterns of consistency that have actually developed in the
world, and they are incorporated into, and are modified by, more com-
prehensive physical and chemical processes. In an historical perspec-
tive, the discovery of such consistent habits would not entail a strict
determinism, limiting the range of future possibilities. They would
rather provide an integrated base from which more complex laws and
more intricate compounds may arise. In other words, an explicitly
analogical context for natural science would open up the future not
only to the discovery but to the invention of scientific laws. And
testing for the success or lack of success of an invention would reflect
in the natural order the debate about consistency in the social order.
An historical philosophy of nature would entail indeterminacy with
respect to precise predictions - an indeterminacy fundamental to the
natural order; but it would not entail a surrender of nature to the
sovereignty o f random chance.
Fourth, ethics. If there is no a priori universal possibility for what
is significant, there can be no a priori universal norm for what is good.
Just as consistency or the lack of it can be determined only after the
events, so the goodness or lack of it will be evident only after a deci-
sion is actualized. The agent looks at what he has done, and either
experiences regret, or says: "Behold it is very good!"
Ethical decisions operate on two levels. At one level individuals
commit themselves to a community and to a tradition. They under-
take to act consistently so that the comprehensive integrating totality
will not be disrupted. This promise or covenant will contain in general
terms the types of acts that are appropriate and the types of acts that
are unacceptable. And the individual undertakes in a present commit-
ment to continue a pattern of behaviour that will remain within that
range. Of course, the contrary of such a commitment would be a
deliberate rejection o f one's familial or cultural ethos.
At a lower level, however, each decision is an individual action with
its own uniqueness. While intending conformity to the promise it can
 51

yet be thoroughly creative. As creative, and thus introducing a genuine

novelty, the act cannot be characterized prior to the event; and its
appropriateness or lack thereof cannot be fully determined until after
it has happened. The novelty may fail to conform to the promise, or
it may be a creative new embodiment of it. Any act undertaken within
the covenant, therefore, will never be evil of itself. Subsequent reflec-
tion on the act may discover an implicit breach of the promise and lead
the agent to exclude from his behaviour any repetition. But that is
not of itself bad. What is morally evil is the reflective conclusion that
such a disruptive act is good. Rather than being excluded, it is accept-
ed as a type for future behaviour, as a precedent for other acts and
decisions. One's heart is hardened. What is culpable is thus the deter-
mination to identify oneself with the failure, to isolate oneself from
the c o m m u n i t y and thus to break the promise.
There is, then, a wide range for responsible action. Creativity and
invention is expected. Each new decision will inaugurate a new actuali-
ty containing features not intended in the act. The c o m m u n i t y will
become richer and more diverse in its moral faithfulness. That such
a creativity may on occasion turn out to be inconsistent with the
promise is not something to be feared and avoided. It is indeed ex-
pected as part of the dynamic of historicity. For even the negative
response to a disruptive act adds richness and depth to the traditions
of a living community.
Fifth, language. Within an historical philosophy there is no universal
grammar that is imply instanced in the various languages. Rather lan-
guage develops as a community responds to the events in its own
history. Nouns develop from names. Verbal forms and grammatical
structures recreate in symbolic form the relations of consistency and
integration that analogical insight identified. As a culture develops, so
grammatical habits and vocabulary are transformed - i n c o r p o r a t i n g
new themes, letting others slide into oblivion. But each new motif is
integrated into the comprehensive linguistic totality already present.
At any particular stage in the history it would be possible for re-
flective thought to determine syntactical structure by distinguishing
constant patterns from variable content. But the grammatical forms
that result will be appropriate only to that language and for that
historical epoch. They cannot be transferred to other languages or
language families. And they may be transformed as a culture develops.
Diverse structures can be compared, however, and a broader compre-
hension o f the nature o f language can be achieved.
The general characteristics of historicity make possible some pre-
52

dictions about the way a genuinely historical language would develop.

There would be no need for a subjunctive, for contrary-to-fact pos-
sibilities would not even be entertained. Because the future will either
be a novelty that cannot be anticipated or something consistent with
a present commitment there may be no need for a distinctive future
tense but a present form that is open to the future and thus incom-
plete. Since knowledge is communicated by anecdote rather than
description, nouns would be concrete rather than abstract, and adjec-
tives and adverbs few and far between. Verbs and verb forms would
be more important than nouns, and "to b e " would serve no longer as
a copula but would commit the subject to a pattern of consistency.
It is interesting to note that this characterization fits at least Hopi
and Hebrew. According to Benjamin Whorf there are three types of
assertion in Hopi: one that reports action completed; a second ex-
presses action presently beginning and extending into the future; the
third characterizes a consistent pattern of action. There is no subjunc-
tive, and the traditional modalities are formed in an interesting way.
What Whorf calls "possibility" is not a positive mode, but asserts that
an action is not inhibited; "necessity" uses the incomplete tense with a
negative to suggest that nothing contrary to the event is anticipated;
the "impotential" simply reports an action that was not successful - a
hunting expedition that found no game, for example. In addition
Whorf draws explicit attention to the ways in which the standard Euro-
pean languages use spatial metaphors to characterize time - as if it
could be all present at once - whereas Hopi uses distinctively temporal
characterizations in which the unrepeatability of time is stressed. 1~
Classical Hebrew as well has only a perfect and an imperfect tense,
no subjunctive nor negative imperative, and no forms for expressing
modalities. It lacks adjectives and adverbs and indeed does not have a
genitive to allow modification by nouns. Its counterpart, the construct/
absolute form, unites two or more words so closely "that together they
constitute one c o m p o u n d idea. ''11
Both languages appear to have been formed in a society moulded by
tradition and history rather than by a consciousness of universal actuali-
ties.

Conclusion

The pluralism inherent in an historicist perspective has significant

implications for international relations. The west has operated within
 53

an enlightenment tradition that is committed to a framework of an-

tecedent universal possibilities - natural rights, the fundamental equali-
ty of man, a single familial tradition within which all are brothers. The
presumption has meant in fact that the values of one tradition have
been taken as normative not only for the world as a whole but also
for the promise and the past of its own culture.
An historical metaphysics calls this into question. For cultures such
as those o f Iran, of Israel and of traditional native societies are funda-
mentally historical and specific. Why should the muslim of Iran accept
the conventions o f traditional diplomacy if this is taken to involve them
in a repudiation of their tradition and a breach of their moral commit-
ment? Why should the people of Israel - committed to being faithful
to the ancestors who died in pogroms and concentration camps - sub-
mit to the decrees of the United Nations if these appear to be consis-
tent with the annihilation of their country? Why should the Dene
nation for whom land is a trust for posterity sell their inheritance
simply to meet the demands of the market economy of an alien cul-
ture?
Once faced with the radical pluralism o f our world, the answers to
these questions are not easy. The differences between cultures are not
relatively unimportant, but historically significant. Faced with this
diversity are we able to create a world society?
One response is possible. Earlier in the paper 1 talked about on-
tology being replaced by a pluralistic philosophy o f traditions. A sen-
sitive appreciation of distinctive cultural configurations may bring
two or more unique but comprehensive actualities into a synthesis,
holding them together in a single reflective act. That synthesis may
become the basis for a yet more comprehensive integration. For it
enables an individual, situated in one culture, to respect and appre-
ciate the distinctiveness of another. The reflective appreciation of
difference and uniqueness becomes the prelude to dialogue, opening
up connections that previously were blocked. Rather than excluding
each other, then. the diverse cultures may come to debate as mem-
bers of a c o m m o n family, building on a common past. When that
comes to pass, the brotherhood of man will not be a universal presup-
position imposed on a divided world, but a result actually created in
history.
Starting from a unique synthesis of an historical philosophy, our
pluralistic and divided world may move toward greater, more compre-
hensive traditions than anything heretofore. Whether that occurs or
not, only the future will decide. But, I venture to suggest, a meta-
54

physics o f historicity will m a k e an i m p o r t a n t c o n t r i b u t i o n to that

future.

NOTES

1. See Kant, Critique of Judgement, w 76.

2. P.F. Strawson, Individuals, (London: Methuen, 1959) 9. (My italics)
3. A.N. Whitehead, Process and Reality, (New York: Harper, 1960) 4. (My italics)
4. Aristotle, Metaphysics, A.2.982a20ff. tr. W.D. Ross. (My itatics)
5. Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, A.2.7 l bl4f. tr. G.R.G. Mute.
6. See F.W.J. ScheUing, Siimmtliche Werke, (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1856-61) Abt. II,
1.288f.
7. Compare in Summa Theologiae I, Q2, A1, St. Thomas' distinction between
what is self-evident in itself and what is self-evident for us, with the implica-
tion that we may need to start from experience to reach first principles which
are self-evident in themselves, even though a science is only possible when one
commences with principles self-evident in themselves.
8. See my paper, "Peirce on Historical Explanation," in Pragmatism and Purpose
Ed. Summner et al. (Toronto: U. ofT., 1981) 15-27.
9. See W.H. Dray, Laws and Explanation in History, (Oxford, 1957) 156-169;
and his "Explanatory Narratives in History," Philosophical Quarterly, 1954,
15-27.
10. See B.L. Whorf, Language, Thought and Reality, ed. J.B. Carroll (Cambridge:
MIT, 1964)pp. 118ff and 134-159.
11. J. Weingreen, A Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew, (Oxford: Clarendon,
1939) 44. Gesenius-Kautsch notes the way in which the close combination of
the two words requires changes in the vowel stress of the first, giving the com-
bination the rhythm of a single word, but attributes this to phonetic and
rhythmical rather than syntactical and logical phenomena. E. Kautsch, Gese-
nius'Hebrew Grammar, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982)89a.