Revisiting Fukuyama's "The End of History?" 30 years after 1989. The issue at stake is the universal applicability of the scientific method and the idea of linear directional development.

1. Not the End of [Hi]Story: Why It
Still Matters
JUOZAS KASPUTIS
RESEARCH FELLOW
POLANYI CENTRE, IASK
XXIV INTERNATIONAL SUMMER UNIVERSITY, 28.06-06.07.2019, KOSZEG (HUNGARY)

2. Narratives of the End
(B. McGinn, Antichrist: Two thousand years of the human
fascination with evil, 2000)
 Christianity as ‘breaking a cycle’, the idea of directional development with final
outcome at the end – the alleviation of human condition
 The other obsession of modern science originator Isaac Newton – calculating the
approach of the end
 Views of the end of time reveal society’s self-understanding
 The apocalypse stories through the mythic language seek to resolve conflicts and
alleviate social anxiety
 The approach of the end gives no room for moral ambiguity, for any shades of
grey

3. Dealing with Finality
(J. B. Bury, The Idea of Progress: An inquiry into its origin and
growth, 1920)
 Three periods of idea of Progress
1) First period – up to French revolution (1789): treated casually
2) Second period – from 1789 to Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859): the beginning
of search for general law, applied achievements of science advertised the idea,
harmonised with the notion “development”
3) Third period – from 1859: Progress as general article of faith or axiom
 Despite the neutral language of science “the question whether it leads in a
desirable direction or not is answered according to the temperament of inquirer”.

4. The Reasoning Machine
(J. Rueff, From the Physical to the Social Sciences, 1929)
 No Science but sciences with universally applicable scientific method
 The aggregate of laws producing rational structures in accordance with Law of
Non-contradiction
 Law of Non-contradiction: formal logic, mathematical analysis
 The mechanical nature of the reasoning machine – proceeds independently from
human agents, a chain of syllogisms from the initial premises

5. Fukuyama’s “Historical Issues”
 1989, The National Interest - “The End of History?”
Clear-cut statement: no viable alternatives to Western liberalism (victory, though yet
incomplete), “Common Marketization” of international relations
 2002, The Centre of Independent Studies – “Has History Restarted Since
September11?”
‘Hypothesis about the process of modernization’: ‘Western’ universal identity
challenged – United Sates vs. European Union
 2012, Foreign Affairs – “The Future of History”
In search for intellectual contradictions: the absence of counter-narratives, global
capitalism is eroding liberal democracy

6. Hegelianism as ‘Esoteric Christianity’
(W. T. Stace, The Philosophy of Hegel, 2010)
 The estrangement of man and God necessitates reconciliation
 The alienation, falling away from God, is sin and misery
 Christianity as combination of all essential moments of religion, other religions are
isolated aspects of the truth
 The Idea of Absolute fully realized in Christianity after dialectical development
through stages
 The death and resurrection – reconciliation is complete
 The Kingdom of God upon earth – the end of history?
 Jena battle, 1806 – Hegel’s ‘end of history’

7. Fukuyama’s Universal History
 The emergence of universal homogenous state as final phase of History
 The universal homogenous state – liberal democracy in the political sphere
combined with the abundance of a modern free market economy
 Secular Christianity – Western values embodying universal process
 In pursuit for “ideal type” of modernisation – the alleged culmination of History in
liberal democracy and society without contradictions (no need for philosophy, arts
or politics, only economic activity)
 The identification of Western institutions with the scientific method

8. The Scientific Method (and its possible
abuse)
 Universal applicability
 Mechanism of directional development – the trap of linearity
 The idea of final phase/achievement – the end of history or illusion of finality
 The imposed choice: curiosity vs. security
 Fake sense of metaphysical certainty
 Lost capacity for creative problem solving – ‘society without contradictions’

9. Conclusions/Questions
 Is society ‘without contradictions’ a viable option?
 Is there any relation of the scientific method with liberalism – the possibility of the
same challenges and issues?
 Is the growth of knowledge possible without curiosity, only out of technical
necessity?