In conclusion, I should like to pose one more question, which was already suggested by my initial reflections and which is capable of bringing to light the possible openness of the global process which we call history, I have described the movement of human experience and Praxis as a process in which reality becomes meaningful, takes on form(Gestalt), on the one hand in the sense of a further determination and differentiation, on the other hand in the sense of a redetermination and restructuring. My question deals explicitly with the connections between the individual phases of this global process and with the laws which regulate the transition from one to another,
An empiricist has no difficulty answering this question, since all he recognizes is a sequence of externally connected events, events which are self-contained and isolated, and do not refer beyond themselves. The connection is reduced to the factual regularity of the sequence. Here we areconfronted with a maximal openness, since everything could also occur in a completely different manner, but there is no sign here of a dialectic in the sense of an inner unity and reciprocity. In contrast, an unambiguous inner connection is given when the individual events are ordered in terms of unitary goal. It is a positiveif the goal already lies in the nature of things or is projected in the form of a law of reason, this would be the metaphysical or moral form of teleology. It is a negative teleology if the goal is at work in the internal contradictions of the whole, this would be the dialectical form of teleology as it is found in Hegel and his followers. As we have seen, openness in this context implies a mere 'not yet', in which case it is quite possible that one leaves undetermined the whether, the when and how of the realization of the goal. I shall not try to decide to what extent the Marxian dialectic exhausts itself in this kind of negative dialectic; should this turn out to be the case, then it would indeed be nothing more than ' the necessary expression and the product of the alienation of materialist- social life ', it would be ' the logic of a history which has not yet become human, but is becoming human '. One may call that which would follow dialectics or not: with the end of prehistory and the disappeaance of the ' antagonistic contradictions ', the pace and laws of the dialectic change: if one thinks of this as an infinite approximation of a goal, it remains a question of a mere ' not yet '.
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