AN APOLOGIA FOR THEORETICAL HISTORY

In memory of Sir Karl Raimund Рopper¹

Nikolai S.Rozov

History and Theory, 1997, vol.36, No 3. P.336-352.

ABSTRACT

Karl Popper's critique of theoretical history remains formidable but contains serious flaws. Popper held erroneous views about the practice of the natural sciences and created overly severe strictures for theoretical statements in the social sciences. General theory and general theoretical statements play a legitimate role in the social sciences. Merton has promoted middle-range theories and models and Lakatos multiple ontologies. Оne can answer Popper's criticisms of either the impossibility or triviality of longterm historical laws by searching for stable constellations of local or middle-range laws rather than a universal law. Moreover, the successful use in the social sciences of various types of scales of measurement rather than an absolute scale shows that quantitative analysis is possible in history. Investigators need to find the boundaries, the frameworks of feasibility, in which historical trends and laws operate. Popper's maximalism plays into the irrationalist trends that he himself deplored. If historical investigators and theoreticians set appropriate goals for theoretical history, they can practice their discipline responsibly and find meanings, if not a single meaning, in history.

Discussions between philosophers and historians about objects of mutual concern commonly have two curious characteristics. Оn the one hand, one is struck by the vast differences in their thinking, not only about problems of historical cognition and the essential meaning of human history, but in the very style of their thought and language. Not infrequently such differences provoke rather vexatious mutual incomprehension. Оn the other hand, historians and philosophers unite in surprising, indeed touching, accord in negation of rational and theoretical approaches to history: a diapason ranging from vehement criticism to scornful dismissal. It is not difficult to find reasons for this, for instance, in the history of the Soviet bloc. Historians, not only in Russia but elsewhere, grew accustomed during "the epoch of historical materialism" and its political

1. This article was written while Sir Karl Poppеr was still alive. Не died оп September 17, 1994 after а long illness. Poppеr, who so strongly influenced thinking about the philosophy of history, himself now belongs to bе history оf philosophy. It might bе аn interesting exercise tо try to measure his influence оп recent history through political leaders who valued his ideas. Although critical of some of Popper's ideas, I dedicate my own thoughts оn theoretical history to him who formulated such а formidable challenge to it. This article first appeared in Voprosy Filosofii 12 (1995), 55-69 and is translated and reprinted here bу permission.

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dogmas to shielding their personal dignity and scholarly integrity by devoting themselves to purely empirical history. Now they see in all rational schemas, models, hypotheses, and theories the danger of regressing into ideological dogmatism.

Вy contrast with post-Soviet historians recuperating from politics, ontologically oriented philosophers in the classic German tradition simply declared theoretical history to be impossible in principle. They arrogated to themselves the right to define holistic structures and the goal, meaning, and idea (or spirit) of history. Analytically oriented philosophers of the Anglo-American tradition took a different tack: they accused practitioners of theoretical history of essentialism, holism, and a host of other sins. Currently, postmodern philosophers (in the so-called Continental tradition) condemn theoretical history for constructing hegemonic master narratives, for "colonizing" thought and discourse about history. Thus, in spite of the vast gulf separating empiricistic historians from these major philosophical schools, all parties find common ground and peaceful coexistence in their disdain for theoretical history.

My article aims to inject some dissonance into this oddly harmonious chorus by showing that theoretical history is both possible and important-an indispensable link between philosophy and history. It is precisely the task of the theories, holistic schemas, and models of theoretical history to comprehend empirical data rationally; and precisely theory must inspire the search for new historical data with the goal of achieving, not a mythical "completeness" (which caused the crisis of the most respected modern historical school-the Annales), but the testing and repair of hypotheses about complex systemic structures and about the dynamics and trajectory of world history.

The emerging global intelligentsia of the twenty-first century will crave neither masses of data arrived at by strict empiricism nor fruitless, scholastic discussions about "spirit" in history or "discourse" about history. Rather, they will seek sustenance in empirically grounded, structural approaches-schemas and models of dynamic systems; and they will strive for rational cognition of systemic mechanisms, tendencies, patterns, and trends. In short, by means of theoretical history the new intelligentsia will construct a philosophy of history and orient themselves towards the solution of practical problems of development, whether national or global. But the notion of theoretical history may still seem chimerical to those convinced by Karl Popper's formidable challenge to theoretical history. It is therefore important to anyone writing an apologia for theoretical history to overcome Popper's strictures.

KARL POPPER AND THEORETICAL HISTORY

Popper presented powerful, consistent, and comprehensive criticisms of theoretical history and "historicism" in two well known books, The Оpen Society and Its Enemies (1945) and The Poverty of Historicism (1957). Roughly half a century later, some of his criticisms remain unexceptionable, and far more

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cogent to this author than those of later and perhaps more zealous opponents of theoretical history, such as Heidegger's followers and the adherents of postmodernism. In fact, I pursue a methodology quite close to Popper's and thus find his criticisms all the more serious an obstacle to my apologia for theoretical history. Popper, moreover, launches an all-out assault in order to remedy weaknesses in his initial attack. The general structure of his criticism of historicism and theoretical history resembles the chain of "tropes" of skepticism (Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus), a similarity that becomes all the more striking if we modify in the following manner the classical discussion of the skeptics' predecessor, the sophist Gorgias: a) the laws of historical development do not exist; b) if they do exist they cannot be known; c) even if they can be known, they are trivial and cannot explain anything. One thus faces a formidable critical structure, reconstructed in the discussion below (sometimes literally) in ten clear, powerful, convincing, and, in many respects, plausible theses.

Theories or Interpretations

Popper's Thesis 1. What is considered to be a theory in history in fact is only one point of  view, an untestable hypothesis, which it is more correct to call a historical interpretation.

It is possible to agree with the general thrust of Popper's thesis, but only if we take into account the following. In keeping with his favorite demarcation criterion, Popper rigidly connects a theory's scientific status with its falsifiability, that is, the possibility of its refutation. Popper calls all theories that fail to satisfy his criterion historical interpretations, which he thinks are chosen relatively arbitrarily. One may then ask: in scientific practice and, most particularly, in Popper's exemplary natural sciences, are all theories or theoretical positions directly testable? The most superficial analysis shows that in every science there is a layer of general theoretical statements that cannot be tested themselves, but serve as the logical foundation for more specific theories and statements that have already been tested. In physics the law of the conservation of energy and other laws of thermodynamics, and the initial postulates of quantum theory, serve as examples.

Are the laws of conservation in physics "testable" in Popper's sense? We must take into account that general theoretical statements produce two basic types of logical consequences. First, they establish the absolute boundaries of possible phenomena; thus, a perpetual motion machine remains outside the realm of possibility envisioned by the law of the conservation of energy. Second, within these boundaries and in certain ideal conditions (usually unattainable in reality) the general theory explains (and predicts) the characteristics of the transition of an object from one state to another. Thus, according to the law of the conservation of energy, when energy is converted from one form to another its total quantity remains constant.

In what sense, then, is the law of the conservation of energy testable? Note

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first that all of the many and varied efforts to create a perpetual motion machine have failed. However, according to this criterion, a fundamental theoretical law of the respected science of physics does not differ significantly from that of history, in which one would not be able to find any society without the reproduction of social relations and institutions, the transmission of cultural patterns from generation to generation, and so on. To be sure, the law of the conservation of energy can be tested in special experimental conditions that permit more precise measurements of the quantity of energy making a transition from one state to another in a closed system. Most important for us, however, is the fact that there is no direct testing of the law of conservation itself, but only indirect testing through intermediate layers of theory and experimental models relevant to various forms of energy: mechanical, thermal, electromagnetic, and so on.

Thus, there should be a link in the form of a general theory or general theoretical statements connecting philosophical presuppositions (interpretations in Popper's sense) and properly scientific, testable theories. In historical science, general theories or general theoretical statements, which need not be directly testable, might exist alongside initial presuppositions (cognitive intentions and ontological assumptions). Moreover, as of now there are no compelling logical objections to the possibility of testable middle-range theories and their models in historical science.² Both the possibility and reality of such theories and laws have already been advanced in the literature.^З

The above position resembles late versions of Imre Lakatos's theory of research programs and can be used as the basis for working out the methodology of theoretical history. With Lakatos's model in mind we can and should consider ontology itself as a variable and entertain the possibility of working with multiple ontologies in history. But the question arises, what should the main social-historical analogues for general theoretical statements in the natural sciences be like?⁴

Historical Laws and Trends

Popper's Thesis 2. That which is presented in history as a law of  development in reality is only a trend, but a trend does not have a universal, law-governed character and thus does not explain anything.

Popper presents his classical logical scheme of the explanation/prediction of

2.Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (New York, 1968).

3. J. О. Wisdom, "General Explanation in History," History and Theory 15 (1976), 257-266; H. Kincaid, "Defending Laws in the Social Sciences," Philosophy of Social Science 20 (1990),56-83.

4. In my own view, these laws would have to relate the principle components of a social entity (environment and social functions, social functions and social modes, social modes and cultural patterns, cultural patterns and human qualities), and the laws of feed-back loops (both positive and negative). Вut this is a special topic. See N. S. Rozov, Struktura tsivilizatsii i tendentsii mirovogo razvitiia [The Structure of Civilization and World Developmental Trends] (Novosibirsk, 1992); Rational Philosophy of History. Resume of the First World Philosophical Congress, August 22-28, 1993 (Moscow, 1993).

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phenomena by distinguishing the deduction of judgments based on phenomena and their consequences from those based on universal laws and "initial conditions." Then be applies this scheme to regular phenomena with observable "growth" trends or "progress" and shows that at every step these trends depend upon specific initial conditions, which at any moment can cease to exist.

Оne can fully endorse Popper's position at this point, including his criticism of the chief error of historicism. Popper's reasoning perhaps deserves the status of a methodological norm expressed as a prohibition: how not to construct theoretical history.

Therefore, trends themselves must be explained by means of general theories. Popper does not object to this possibility in principle, which leads to the problematic of the following thesis.

Universal Laws and Middle-Range Laws

Popper's Thesis 3. The trends operating in a given historical period can be explained through so-called "laws," limited by the boundaries of that period. However, this violates one of the most important postulates of the scientific method, namely, the unlimited sphere of the validity of laws.

Specific initial conditions, whose regularity is necessary for the continuation of trends in a given historical period, clearly might be explained by laws whose validity is limited by the framework of a given period. In other words, one must speak of local laws (and their corresponding theories) or "middle-range" laws, using Robert K. Merton's term. Popper, as shown in the third thesis, believes that this position violates a major scientific norm. But Popper simplifies things too much, even in his exemplary natural sciences. For example, the laws of the diffusion of light significantly differ for crystal, liquid, and gaseous media. Ice melts and then water evaporates; the laws of light distribution change in a given spatio-temporal segment without the help of any miracles. Popper might object that universal laws of optics do operate here and that the characteristics of the media can be seen as dependent variables. Оne might agree with Popper in principle, but in scientific practice deductions from abstract universal laws are never made. Similar arguments can be found in the literature.⁵ At the same time, Popper is right when be says that a new law should not arise like a deus ex machina or ad hoc hypothesis.

Moreover, one must explain the transition from one group of local laws to others, and the explanation must be based on a more general model or models. Clearly, for human societies such historical variability of local laws is extremely significant.⁶ Various types of historical systems have their own "logic," that is, their own active laws of development; but we need to account for transitions from one system to another (trans-systemic changes).

5. Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (Indianapolis, 1965); Kincaid, "Defending Laws."

6. I. Wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis, Social Theory Today (Cambridge, Eng., 1988).

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Must Laws of History Вe Trivial?

Popper's Thesis 4. Even if there are universal laws, they are quite trivial, uninteresting, and can be grasped by the exercise of the most elementary common sense. Accordingly, the revelation of such universal laws is of no scientific interest whatsoever.

Popper writes:

it may be argued that history does make use of universal laws contrary to the emphatic declaration of so many historians that history has no interest whatever in such laws. To this we may answer that a singular event is the cause of another singular event-which is its effect-only relative to some universal laws. But these laws may be so trivial, so much part of our common knowledge, that we need not mention them and rarely notice them. If we say that the cause of the death of Giordano Bruno was being burnt at the stake, we do not need to mention the universal law that all living things die when exposed to intense heat. But such a law was tacitly assumed in our causal explanation.⁷

Popper thus gives trivial reasons for Bruno's death-fire kills all living creatures-and for the defeat and division of Poland in 1772⁸-a larger army will always win the battle, all other things being equal.

Popper's thesis about the triviality of historical laws and the above examples carry little cogency. If an investigator is capable of seeing only trivial laws when examining a given phenomenon, it by no means establishes the absence of other non-trivial, interesting, and scientifically fruitful laws. А great many people had observed falling bodies and rolling balls before Galileo and seen nothing but "trivialities." Aristotelian physics had crystallized the commonsense view: the heavier the body, the faster it falls. Galileo saw the situation otherwise.

Popper made himself a prisoner of historical atomism, and his judgments and examples are correct only within its narrow limits. There are a great many classical as well as contemporary currents of theoretical history, taking as their subject major systemic structures and/or extended processes and trends (which will be discussed below). Theoretical history permits us to deal with problems on a much larger scale. Thus, the division of Poland in 1772 connects with global historical problems related to the long struggle for spheres of influence between military-political and economic blocs of European states in the second half of the eighteenth century: between Austria, Sweden, France and Turkey, on one side, and Russia, Prussia, and England, on the other. Оne might ask, why in their battles do these "giants" sometimes partition and annex weaker states and at other times protect their independence?

In the 1990s the map of Europe is again being rearranged. The struggle for spheres of influence continues to be rather bitter and fierce, despite its somewhat more civilized appearance. The problems and factors (including local laws) affecting the self-preservation of small states have great interest and urgency to new or newly aspiring states trying to survive in such conditions. Thus, one can agree that there were trivial reasons for Poland's cold-blooded parti-

7.Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, (Boston, 1957), 144-145.

8.Karl Popper, The Оpen Society and its Enemies [1945] 2 vols. (New York, 1966), П, 264.

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tion by three geopolitical predators. But there should be a non-trivial answer to the question, in what combination of circumstances do powerful, predatory states find it more advantageous to grant sovereignty to weak states? Nontrivial, more general laws underlie fissiparous and unifying trends. For example, Randall Collins managed to explain long cycles of expansion-contraction and structural transformations of the Chinese, European, and Russian geopolitical ecumene by the combined, recurrent action of rather simple laws.⁹ The recurring operation of such laws over decades and centuries yields regular, long term historical patterns which are by no means trivial. Modern researchers, unlike Popper, may be loath to leave these matters to the exercise of common sense.

The Problem of Explaining Serial Phenomena

Popper's Thesis 5. There cannot be any laws of long-term development because at every one of its links a chain of events is subject (o new combinations of laws.

This too is an argument based upon Popper's atomistic approach. He once again constructs an analogy with the natural sciences, saying that even to explain the fall of an apple one would need to enlist the actual, particular circumstances, themselves not part of a law, in addition to the repeating elements cited in laws. Popper persists in considering as laws only the most universal causal ties such as the law of gravity in physics, on the one hand, or those of the trivial type, such as all living things perish when consumed by fire, on the other. The previous discussion of Popper's theses invokes the middle-range laws of theoretical history and avers that they can be used scientifically to explain a variety of important phenomena. Although Popper's statement may be correct with respect to each separate instance in a chain of events, it is hardly true for typical chains of events, for the overall trends of serial phenomena such as processes of social change. One must agree with Popper that there cannot be a unique universal law explaining a series of individual phenomena. But this does not rule out the existence of and search for stable constellations of middle-range laws explaining the typical trends discernible in such serial phenomena in an investigation of broader scope.

The Holism of Totalities and the Holism of Models

Popper's Thesis 6. It is impossible (o create a general historical theory by generalizing from individual observations, but holism (an integrative approach) in the social sciences, history among them, is impossible, insofar as it is impossible in principle (o grasp all aspects of a social whole.

Expanding the scale of observation of a subject implies an integral cognitive approach: holism. But Popper advances particular arguments against holism

9.Randall Collins, Weberian Sociological Theory (Cambridge, Eng., 1986); "Prediction in Macrosociology: The Case of the Soviet Collapse," American Journal of Sociology 100 (1995), 1552-1593.

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as well. In this case his criticism is quite sound. He distinguishes two variants of holism corresponding to different understandings of the term "whole."

There is a fundamental ambiguity in the use of the word "whole" in recent holistic literature. It is used to denote (a) the totality of all the properties or aspects of a thing, and especially all of the relations holding between its constituent parts, and (b) certain special properties or aspects of the thing in question, namely those which make it appear an organized structure rather than a "mere heap." 10

Popper rejects the possibility of investigating integralities as "totalities" in the sense of (a), but does not protest the scientific investigation of the integrality of selected abstract models in the sense of (b). At present, this thesis seems rather obvious both for systemic approaches and general scientific methodology.

The Problem of Measurement in History

Popper's Thesis 7. Even if we can bring to light some laws of historical development, it is impossible to test the corresponding hypotheses, because a quantitative analysis of data in historical studies is either extremely difficult or impossible; moreover, it is impossible to establish the necessary and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of a given historical event.

We have arrived at Popper's most serious argument against theoretical history, the importance of which is confirmed by the weakness (not to say, the lack) of fully achieved, verified, and recognized results in this sphere of social knowledge. Popper did not consider social and historical hypotheses to be untestable in theory, but he rightly noted the extreme difficulty of the quantitative analysis of data even in a mathematized social science such as economics. However, this analysis is imperative when some factors that increase and some that decrease certain variables are at work.

The seriousness of this argument increases vastly insofar as we move from contemporary to historical economies, for which other than fragmentary and narrow quantitative data can rarely be found. We find an even more deplorable situation in other aspects of historical knowledge-for example, social, political, cultural, technological, psychological-where even now, on the whole, researchers have not determined what should be measured and how. The solution should be a compromise between two extremes: the maximalist standard of quantitative testing of the natural sciences, with physics as the model; and an obstinate rejection of any measurement, or of any comparative evaluation, of historical phenomena. In the methodology of the social sciences, especially in psychology, the following types of scales of measurement (presented in order of ascending precision) are well known:

The nominative scale, by which things are distinguished and supplied with names (also, classifications, groupings, typologies, clusters); numbers here function only as names, like the letters of the alphabet;^l1

10.Popper, Poverty of Historicism, 76.

11.An example of this is Marx's Rent 1 and Rent 2.

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The scale order, according to which objects are distributed in accordance with the relative degree of expression of a chosen parameter (each succeeding object is "greater" than its predecessor, but this is all that is fixed by the given scale); every gradation of the scale of order (and the objects in it) can be assigned a number, but only the order is significant; for example, in history: orders of phases and stages; orders of ranks in various social or bureaucratic systems; the order of states in the core-periphery axis of world-systems analysis; the order of the life cycle of civilizations according to various historians and philosophers of history;¹²

The scale of intervals, where numbers assigned to objects specify not only their order, but also "the distance" between them in a chosen parameter;13 The scale of relations (with units of measurement); shows how much more a parameter is expressed in one object than in another; for example, in history: market prices, the population of cities, the size of armies;

The absolute scale (with zero), which makes it possible to measure a parameter independently in single objects and to employ the entire series of real numbers. (Full realization of this scale is questionable even in such "ideal" sciences as physics. Although measurement of distances appears to be absolute, the absolute measurement of time or energy is doubtful.)

The maximalist approach requires the measurement of historical data on an absolute scale (as is usually the case in physics). The rejection of any kind of measurement, proclaimed by followers of Dilthey's "science of the spirit" is, in essence, a self-limitation of thought to nominative scales (classifications, typologies, the description of individual phenomena). One may agree that applications of the scale of relations (not to speak of the absolute scale) in history fall within a very narrow area. But they increase substantially when we lessen demands for accuracy and move to the scale of intervals, and even more so for the scale order.

Аll historians have always used the scale order, even though they may not have known it (like Moliere's Monsieur Jourdain, who spoke prose without knowing it). We are all accustomed to historians making statements about the relative wealth and political power of one or another estate, or the relative strength (in terms of skills, organization, equipment) of armies, or about the "growth" and "development" or "expansion" of cities, countries, and empires (that is, according to several parameters, they are greater in subsequent periods than they are in preceding ones)-and in every such case historians implicitly use the scale order. But if the scale of order is widely and successfully used in empirical historical studies, why not use it in the formulation and testing of hypotheses in theoretical history? It would appear that if the Popper-Hempel

12. N. Danilevsky, О. Spengler, А. Toynbee and others usually structure the lifecycle of civilizations by means of at least three Scales of Order: time, external power (measured by expansion), and internal vitality (that is, cultural and moral-spiritual strength).

13. Temperature illustrates this scale. W e can only measure interval differences of temperature. The Scale of Intervals is widely used in psychology to measure sensory perception and almost all measurements of human qualities, such as IQ, are done in the Scale of Intervals.

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notion of universal (or covering) laws has a future in theoretical history, it will be realized mainly by using the scale of order.¹⁴

The Uniqueness of World History

Popper's Thesis 8. It is impossible Ёn principle (o enunciate a law of development in World History because it is a single process and one can only make specific empirical statements about it.

Оne must agree with Popper that it is impossible to formulate theoretical hypotheses about World History as a single phenomenon. However, as with the general theoretical statements adduced in the discussion of Popper's first thesis, statements analogous to such hypotheses can be formulated and tested for various middle-range aspects of world history delimited by temporal and geographical boundaries. Thus, in some cases we may assume that hypotheses which are correct for given regional historical systems are also true, with appropriate amendments, for all of the other regions in a world-system. This approach is very popular in traditional empirical history, especially ancient history where, in the absence of data, a picture of institutions, cities, indeed of an entire society (for example, Egyptian, Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian), is constructed on the basis of partial information gleaned from analogous phenomena af  other sites. Theoretical history cannot be, and should not be, stricter and more exact than empirical history. Theoretical knowledge of world history is possible. Granting that it will never be as strict as that of theoretical physics (and thus not as strict as Popper would like), there are no basic obstacles to making its methodology as rigorous as that of empirical history. We should thus abandon the impossible task of formulating a theory embracing all of World History and instead try to construct and then to combine middle-range theories describing various aspects of world history and types of historical systems.

The Nonpredictability of Scientific Development

Popper's Thesis 9. In any case, a theory of historical development that claims (o make scientific predictions is impossible, because it is logically impossible (o predict the development of scientific knowledge, which has a significant effect on human history. This means that theoretical history is impossible.

In support of this statement Popper deploys the following argument:

(1) The course of human history is strongly influenced by the growth of human knowledge ....

(2) We cannot predict, by rational or scientific methods, the future growth of our scientific knowledge ....

(3) We cannot, therefore, predict the future course of human history.

(4) This means that we must reject the possibility of a theoretical history; that is to say, of a historical social science that would correspond to theoretical physics .... (5) The fundamental aim of historicist methods ... is therefore misconstrued; and historicism collapses.¹⁵

14.See R. Collins's geopolitical laws alluded to above.

15.Popper, Poverty of Historicism, Preface, ix-x.

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From the point of view presented here, this argumentation, however logically rigorous and powerful, is pounding on an open door. One may open it even wider. No less than by scientific knowledge, historical events are influenced by new ideologies, new legal and economic ideas, new directions in religion and morality, new cultural phenomena, new forms of leisure, new social needs, new technologies, and so on, none of which are scientifically predictable.

Popper correctly shows that even in those areas of natural science where the most precise measurements can be made, it is possible, on the basis of the knowledge of laws and initial conditions, to give an exact prediction of events only in artificially or naturally isolated situations (for example, in astronomy, events in the solar system). In other cases in the natural and especially in the social sciences one can scientifically predict only the boundaries within whose limits certain predicted events and processes will occur. One can increase the accuracy of these predictions, that is, narrow the limits, but never to the point of exact prophecy, for which astrologers, cabalists, and other professional soothsayers should be grateful.

The historical trends and local laws, which are appropriate for theoretical history and a rational philosophy of history, are neither absolute nor universal (as suggested in the discussion of the second and third theses). These trends and laws act only within their own limits, which we may call frameworks of feasibility. А methodological paradigm of this sort quite clearly allows social predictions (as well as models for the historical past) and fully accords with Popper's thesis about the nonpredictability of the development of scientific knowledge.

The solution lies in this: as a precondition for their validity, social predictions must take into account future scientific discoveries (as well as changes in ideologies, values, etc.), and determine in advance that such discoveries and changes will not transgress the frameworks of feasibility of the trends and local laws on which the predictions are based. If, in a given case, it is impossible to accept such a precondition, one must decide whether or not to widen the framework of feasibility, and thereby render prediction less accurate. When the significance of a prediction is too great for us to eschew it in favor of refined scientific precision, then it calls for a reverse action. The example of ecological predictions will be introduced below in support of this point. Some sort of balancing act is quite normal in scientific methodology. Most important, we must not simply abandon hope when we find it impossible to achieve absolute precision in some scientific venture.

Paradoxically, Popper's elevated sense of intellectual responsibility and strict rationalism, and the impressive thought that led to his conclusions about the maximalist version of theoretical history, have had the effect of discrediting work in this area. Inadvertently, be succored other irresponsible, irrationalist trends that be himself deplored.

Responsibility for the Future

Popper's Thesis 10. Historicism, which asserts some sort objective, law governed "course of history" not amenable (o other than minor changes, such

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as accelerations and retardations, is an ethically vicious doctrine, irrespective of its status as "theoretical history." We ourselves are responsible for our history, which lacks any fatal "course," any guarantee of progress, and any "meaning." We ourselves are free to give one or another meaning to history and "we shall do it much better as we become more fully aware of the fact that progress rests with us, with our watchfulness, with our efforts, with the clarity of  our conception of our ends, and with the realism of their choice. "16

The last of Popper's arguments presented here has an ethical and existential character that, one should say, does not make it weaker by comparison with the epistemological and methodological arguments advanced earlier. But it does not militate against the kind of theoretical history advocated here. Рopper's protest against an "objective course of history" is beside the point if we reject any absolute, unconditional laws and trends in history, and any corresponding fatalism or predetermination, and accept the idea of limits of feasibility for middle-range laws (see the discussion of theses 1, 3, and 9).

For example, there are in the contemporary world quite powerful destructive trends in technology affecting the atmosphere, soil, rivers, and oceans. Were we to consider these trends fatal (in both senses of the term), we would fully deserve Popper's criticism because we would remove from ourselves the responsibility for any sort of ecological action to counter such trends. But we know that such trends have been reversed. Pollution in Tokyo had been growing at a menacing rate some twenty to thirty years ago. Today, to be sure, Tokyo does not have ideally clean air (something hardly to be expected in a megalopolis), but the air quality is acceptable by public health standards. In Tokyo, as elsewhere, the reversal of the trend was accomplished within the frameworks of feasibility of the growth and reduction of pollution. Practically, the reversal was carried out by a persistent, long-term municipal strategy calling for annual growth of penalties on the producers of atmospheric pollutants, and intensified investment in the ecologically relevant technologies and projects. Many other cases in which pollution has been reversed might be adduced, but what has been achieved at the local level has thus far not been achieved on a global scale. Ecologists have given us fair warning that global destructive tendencies are either very close to limits of feasibility or have possibly exceeded them. We cannot shirk responsibility for the future.

The issue of "progress" is somewhat more complicated. To be sure, the idea that history develops toward a preset goal (the Kingdom of God, Communism, the Omega point, etc.) carries little cogency. Judgments about progress always depend upon some sort of accepted set of values. Needless to say, history interpreted according to any system of values will be full of "progressions" and "regressions." One is then burdened with the complex methodological task of abstracting and of arriving at a "higher" level in order to bring to light and evaluate the most general trends and results. Tbe problems become even more

16. Popper, Оpen Society, П, 280.

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complex if we take into account the culture-bound character of value systems, many of which are incompatible. Moreover, in spite of the hopeful vision of the Kant-Windelband-Rickert-Scheler tradition, all value systems are historically changeable.¹⁷ The naiveté of Enlightenment and nineteenth-century ideas should by no means be preferable to twentieth-century nihilism about progress in history. Rather, what is called for is a new field of investigation in which ethical, theoretical, and empirical historical problems of progress and regression are examined on the basis of a specially constructed, general ontology-a new paradigm.¹⁸

Thus, one must agree with Popper's calls for responsibility and a critique of any unconditional and absolute law of progress in history; but this does not mean that one should abandon the investigation of historical progress. To the contrary, one should try to reestablish the field on a vital new basis.

METHODOLOGICAL CONCLUSIONS

These general methodological conclusions are proposed on behalf of a rational philosophy of history and theoretical history. In order to achieve these goals, it is necessary to do the following:

· to distinguish clearly ontological, general theoretical, and strictly theoretical positions which meet different demands, first of all, with respect to testability;19

· to take into account the possibility of and justification for multiple ontologies; and to pose and solve the problem of the relation of this multiplicity to classical notions of the uniqueness of scientific truth;

· to avoid absolutizing any ontology, paradigm, or general theory; and to generate criteria which, despite their untestability, can be used to modify or even replace unfruitful general theoretical and even ontological positions;

· to reject strictly a "method of testing" like the selection of examples confirming a chosen ontology and theory (a method misused by, among others, Oswald Spengler, Arnold Toynbee, and Lev Gumilev); to the contrary, to strive to find anomalies and counterexamples, whose absence would be

17. N. S. Rozov, "Constructive Axiology and Intellectual Culture in the Future," Studia Humanistica, 1, no. 2 (Prague, 1990), 55-72.

18. Оne possible starting point for such a paradigm is the presentation of a structural description of the course of world history (its main stages and types of system and their changes: for example ecumenes, world-empires, world-economies, civilizations, societies) to be explained by the dynamics of world history (various mechanisms described by law-like statements about the causes of long-term processes: for example, cycles, trends, growth, transitions, and transformations).

19. Imre Lakatos's The Methodology of Scientific Research Programs provides a useful model. See also K. Boulding, А Primer on Social Dynamics: History as Dialectics and Development (New York, 1970); 1. Prigogine, "Values, Systems, Structures and Affinities," Futures (August 1986), 493-507; Е. Laszlo, The Age of Bifurcation (New York, 1991); Christopher Lloyd, The Structures of History (Oxford, 1993), and the bibliography to Lloyd's book; the forum on chaos theory in History and Theory 34 (February, 1995).

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the best confirmation of a theory, and whose presence would be a stimulus for its revision, modification, or replacement;

· to concretize universal laws "for all human communities" in (local) middle range laws, which not only vary for different communities, but may also vary over time for any given community;

· to take into account the dependence of historical trends on the "frameworks of feasibility" of the underlying laws;

· whenever possible, to reveal and to specify for each trend, cycle, or transformation these frameworks of feasibility and the factors determining their transformation;

· to investigate how the level of local laws is defined by the range (in a general systemic sense) of their frameworks of feasibility; in which case a community defined by given local laws in due course can escape their limits and enter into the "operational zone" of new local laws;

· to explain the transition from one set of local laws to the other by models (or laws) of a higher level;

· to recognize that, despite the possibility that causal explanations of atomistic historical phenomena may be trivial, the explanation of large-scale chains of facts and their consequentiality cannot be trivial, but is precisely the kind of explanation that is significant for theoretical history;

· to consider under these kinds of explanations the laws pertaining, at least, to the following: a) the existence of a historical system of a definite type as a whole; b) its reproduction and development in history; c) its transformation into another type of historical system;

· to recognize the impossibility of explaining a long chain of phenomena by means of a single law, and at the same time to take into account the possibility of persistent constellations of laws explaining the similarities of typical chains;

· to set as the goal of theoretical history, not the advancement of a single theory of World History as a unique phenomenon, but the creation of a complex of multiple interconnected theories, explaining the course and interaction and, perhaps, general patterns of multiple historical trajectories;

· to recognize that theories of historical development cannot be used to predict events, but only the shifting boundaries of processes, with the assumption that the frameworks of feasibility of these theories and their laws do not change;

· to eschew judgments about the "end of history," and to take as its task clear judgments about such problematic notions as "progress" and "regression" with the help of clearly formulated, undogmatic evaluative criteria; and to recognize that these judgments do not relieve us of the responsibility for the future and for the very values used to define it, insofar as we preserve the freedom to determine our history.

In view of the above methodological agenda, the skeptical reader might ask: why bother with abstract proof of the possibility of theoretical history? Where

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are the more concrete approaches, investigations, results? In the first place, in spite of the obvious inadequacies of many of their positions, the works of Karl Marx, Max Weber, R. О. Collingwood, Arnold Toynbee, Pitirim Sorokin, Alfred Kroeber, and Carroll Quigley, for example, have made a remarkable contribution to theoretical history. Second, considerable progress has been made in the last decades in the theoretical grasp of historical dynamics, structures, and laws. The following is only a brief list of some important directions and areas of investigation:

· the systemic and cybernetic approaches to historical dynamics, social change, and the transition from one historical whole to another, and more generally, their use in the analysis of historical structures;²⁰

· the reproduction and development of large historical systems in the diachronic, comparative analysis of world systems;²¹

· comparative analysis of the genesis and development of civilizations;²²

· geopolitical theory, changes in global military-political and economic hegemony, study of long geo-political cycles and global wars;²³

· social revolutions, social evolution, transformations of ruling regimes, the development of "technologies of power."²⁴

Third, we might ask if it is possible to find some basis for bridging the theoretical distance separating the various paradigms. The discussion of such issues in a community of scholars dedicated to their study is the traditional way to seek common ground, but new technologies make communication significantly easier and, one hopes, will facilitate the exploration of theoretical history.²⁵

THЕ MEANING OF HISTORY (IN LIEU OF А CONCLUSION)

We have arrived at Popper's last argument concerning a most obscure, but at the same time exhilarating problem — the meaning of history — a problem

20.See the works of Prigogine, Laszlo, and Lloyd cited above.

21. F. Braudel, Civilisation materielle, economie et capitalisme, XV-XVIII siecle. Tome 3. Le temps du monde (Paris, 1979); Wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis; Charles Tilly, Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons (New York, 1984); D. Wilkinson, "Central Civilization," Comparative Civilizations Review 17 (1987), 31-59; Christopher Chase-Dunn, Global Formation (Оxford, 1997); Giovanni Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century (London, 1995); S. Sanderson, Social Transformations: А General Theory of Historical Development (Oxford, 1995).

22.See the Comparative Civilizations Review.

23. L. Hepple, "The Revival of Geopolitics," Political Geography Quarterly 4 (1986), 21-36; Р.

Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York, 1987); K. Rasler and W. Thompson, The Great Powers and Global Struggle, 1490--1990 (Lexington, Ky., 1994); Exploring Long Cycles, ed. Е. Modelski (London, 1987).

24. Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions (New York, 1979); Daniel Chirot, How Societies Change (London, 1994); M. Mann, The Sources of  Social Power (New York, 1986), 1. Other important contributions might be adduced, and one should not fail to note that a dogmatic form of "historical materialism" did not prevent the appearance of significant work in these areas in the author's homeland. See especially Igor Diakonov, Puti istorii [The Pathways of History] (Moscow, 1994). He offers an eight-phase analysis of world history with diagnostic attributes for each phase and brief but well done empirical confirmations.

25. The Internet facilitates discussion of the above matters. PHILOFHI (PHlLosophy OF HIstory and theoretical history), organized in Aprill994, now has more than 220 members from thirty five countries. See http://wsrv.clas. virginia.edu/-dew7/anthronet/subscribe/philophi.html

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belonging not to theoretical history as such, but to the philosophy of history. r bravely attacked the problem:

Popper's Thesis 11. "Although history has no ends, we can impose these ends of ours upon it; and although history has no meaning, we can give it a meaning. "²⁶

These trenchant remarks can evoke either horror or admiration, depending the reader. No matter what emotions they inspire, they force us to reflect about the problem of the relationship of human beings to history.

From a purely logical point of view, one can hardly fault Popper's position .Things in themselves, including human histories, are quite meaningless unless they are in some relationship with human beings, their cognition, their practices, and their world views. Clearly, observers of history will find it devoid of any meaning, insofar as they lack any sort of ontological or evaluative presuppositions concerning it. One may ask, however, do we have the right to take 'tabula rasa’ as our point of departure, that is, to assume a total absence of such presuppositions when discussing the meaning of history? For all of our differences, we are not creatures from another planet, but actors creating the very history whose meaning we are trying to determine, something noted by R. G. Collingwood and K. Jaspers, among others.²⁷

Thought tends to stay on the beaten track, and in philosophical traditions we find at the ready two major alternatives. The first, a dogmatic, traditional, holistic paradigm, provides authoritative answers to all questions. To this paradigm belong almost all of the religious and idealistic historical doctrines, and some of the quasi-scientific ones (such as Spengler's and Toynbee's). For them history's riddles are solved. History is objective, known; it is God's work, or the product of the Absolute, Nature, Culture, or some other God-term. If people do not recognize this or deny it, they do so out of ignorance or wickedness. The second paradigm, brilliantly set forth by Popper, embraces sophists, skeptics, agnostics and empiricists, and is relativistic, voluntaristic, and individualistic. History itself has no meaning, and each and every human being has unlimited freedom of choice to give it a subjective meaning.

These polarized alternatives share one curious feature: complete indifference to the content of history. No matter what new knowledge we acquire about the human past, about people's lives in the past, about the rise and decline of societies and civilizations in various centuries-nothing can change a dogmatically "found" or voluntaristically "imposed" meaning of history. However, investigating history for the sake of demonstrating general truths is the business of ideologues and propagandists; it is unworthy of practitioners of science and rational philosophy. Evidently, it is logically impossible to deduce any "idea of history" from empirical research-from "historical facts." But contrary to the above views, the variety and mutability of our cognitive aims and world views with respect to history signifies the variety and mutability of history's meanings,

26.Popper, Оpen Society, П, 278.

27. R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of  History [1946] (Oxford, 1961); K. Jaspers, Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte (Zurich, 1949).

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but not their absence. Such meanings must be based on the results of theoretical history, on investigations of the dynamics, structure, and course of world history, subject to falsifiability through empirical findings. The appearance of invariant positions might reasonably lead to the conviction that corresponding invariant meanings of history exist; and these in turn might be synthesized into the long-sought universal meaning of history. Perhaps no such invariant positions exist. If so, there can be no legitimate case for pursuing such a synthesis. At the very least, we should keep the field open for fruitful philosophical reflection about the meaning of history, all the while acknowledging the complexity, vagueness, and vacillation in our treatment of the problem. Surely, without human beings history has no meaning. But human beings are not free capriciously to impose any meaning whatsoever on history or to deny that it has any sense at all. The meaning of history has a dual, subjective-objective character, and is evidently both multiple (hence "meanings" should be the subject of the sentence) and mutable, changing with the very course of history, with transformations of human qualities and human values, and with peoples' changing grasp of their own history.

If after this labyrinthine discussion the reader still clings to some shred of hope that the author can offer clarification about the meaning of history, alas, I must confess I cannot. Rather, by rising to Popper's challenge and debating with him I have tried, however inadequately, to present in brief outline the methodology of theoretical history and a rational philosophy of history. It will require the efforts of generations of scholars to pose anд solve problems of this magnitude adequately. Popper's brilliant challenge deserves no less.

Novosibirsk State University

Russia