Historic recurrence
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| + | "[[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]] remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as [[tragedy]], the second time as [[farce]]." --"[[The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon]]" (1852) by Karl Marx | ||
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| - | '''Eternal return''' (also known as "'''eternal recurrence'''") is a concept which posits that the [[universe]] has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a [[self-similar]] form an [[infinity|infinite]] number of times across infinite time or space. | + | '''Historic recurrence''' is the repetition of similar events in [[history]]. In the extreme, the concept hypothetically assumes the form of the [[Eternal return|Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence]], which has been written about in various forms since [[Ancient times|antiquity]] and was described in the 19th century by [[Heinrich Heine]] and [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]. |
| - | The concept is found in [[Indian philosophy]] and in [[ancient Egypt]] and was subsequently taken up by the [[Pythagoreans]] and [[Stoics]]. With the decline of [[classical antiquity|antiquity]] and the spread of [[Christianity]], the concept fell into disuse in the [[western world]], though [[Nietzsche|Friedrich Nietzsche]] resurrected it as a thought experiment to argue for ''[[amor fati]]''. | + | |
| + | Nevertheless, while it is often remarked that "History repeats itself," in cycles of less than [[physical cosmology|cosmological]] duration this cannot be strictly true. That was appreciated by [[Mark Twain]], who has been quoted as saying that "History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme." | ||
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| + | In this interpretation of recurrence, as opposed perhaps to the Nietzschean interpretation, there is no metaphysics. Recurrences take place due to ascertainable circumstances and chains of [[causality]]. An example of the mechanism is the ubiquitous phenomenon of [[multiple independent discovery]] in science and technology, which has been described by [[Robert K. Merton]] and [[Harriet Zuckerman]]. | ||
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| + | In ''The Idea of Historical Recurrence in Western Thought'', G.W. Trompf traces historically recurring patterns of political thought and behavior in the west since antiquity. If history has lessons to impart, they are to be found ''par excellence'' in such recurring patterns. | ||
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| + | Historic recurrences can sometimes induce a sense of "convergence," "resonance" or ''[[déjà vu]]''. | ||
| - | In addition, the philosophical concept of eternal recurrence was addressed by [[Arthur Schopenhauer]]. It is a purely [[physics|physical]] concept, involving no supernatural [[reincarnation]], but the return of beings in the same bodies. [[Time]] is viewed as being not [[linear]] but [[wheel of time|cyclical]]. | ||
| ==See also== | ==See also== | ||
| - | *[[Cyclical pattern]] | + | * [[Cliodynamics]] |
| - | *[[Endless knot]] | + | * [[Eternal return]] |
| - | *[[Ergodic theory]] | + | * [[Fractal]] |
| - | *[[Eternal Return (Eliade)]] | + | * [[Multiple discovery#Humanities|Multiple discovery]] |
| - | *[[Eternalism (philosophy of time)]] | + | * [[List of multiple discoveries]] |
| - | *[[Historic recurrence]] | + | * [[Repetition (Kierkegaard)|Repetition]], a related concept by [[Søren Kierkegaard]] |
| - | *[[Infinite loop]] | + | |
| - | *[[Mandala]] | + | |
| - | *[[Möbius strip]] | + | |
| - | *[[Nikolay Danilevsky]] | + | |
| - | *[[Ourobouros]] | + | |
| - | *[[Poincaré recurrence theorem]] | + | |
| - | *[[Universal Function]] | + | |
| {{GFDL}} | {{GFDL}} | ||
Revision as of 13:36, 15 August 2019
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"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." --"The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon" (1852) by Karl Marx |
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Historic recurrence is the repetition of similar events in history. In the extreme, the concept hypothetically assumes the form of the Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence, which has been written about in various forms since antiquity and was described in the 19th century by Heinrich Heine and Friedrich Nietzsche.
Nevertheless, while it is often remarked that "History repeats itself," in cycles of less than cosmological duration this cannot be strictly true. That was appreciated by Mark Twain, who has been quoted as saying that "History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
In this interpretation of recurrence, as opposed perhaps to the Nietzschean interpretation, there is no metaphysics. Recurrences take place due to ascertainable circumstances and chains of causality. An example of the mechanism is the ubiquitous phenomenon of multiple independent discovery in science and technology, which has been described by Robert K. Merton and Harriet Zuckerman.
In The Idea of Historical Recurrence in Western Thought, G.W. Trompf traces historically recurring patterns of political thought and behavior in the west since antiquity. If history has lessons to impart, they are to be found par excellence in such recurring patterns.
Historic recurrences can sometimes induce a sense of "convergence," "resonance" or déjà vu.
See also
- Cliodynamics
- Eternal return
- Fractal
- Multiple discovery
- List of multiple discoveries
- Repetition, a related concept by Søren Kierkegaard
