Just to be clear, I’m using archeology for its etymological value, not for its relationship with a branch of science…
Also I’m not an expert, but from what I do know I don’t think Foucault’s usage is far different from my own. Seems he was after the rules and context that made statements meaningful, which is an archeological exercise aimed at origins, or where the statement came from. The source of the statement’s meaning being these rules / context…
So let’s look at it this way: where Foucault looked back, I would want to look forward, or have the end be what gives meaning to a statement or act. In other words, a statement or act should only be meaningful insofar as it moves us toward our collective vision of the end.
(Note: I’m not denying the meaning that Foucault talks about, which strikes me as more of an intelligible meaning. For me, to be meaningful is to be something more. And should instead be gauged by the impact of the act or statement on moving us toward that end. But again, I’m no expert.
Well I suppose I’ll just ask, point blank (since no one has offered), does anyone have a vision of the end? Something they would hope could be collectively shared?
History is a continuous event. There are no ‘origins’. Each phenomenon has antecedent qualities, in a long chain of events leading back to the "creation’, “BingBang” or whatever you want to call it.
So your project is fraught with a bad theory. You will inevitably find what you are looking for. But were you to look with an open mind you will find another layer underneath, and the iruptions and strata are phenomena of your own conception, not facts about the past, but about the history of your interests.
ἀρχαῖος does not necessarily imply origins or beginning, just old and primal. An apparent ‘origin’ is simply a coalescence of event, crystalised by the observation of the present. For example there was no iruption when homo erectus suddenly became homo sapiens, the ‘origin event’ by which we seek a boundary is nothing but the need for tidiness, and categorisation. It never happened.
As we evolve, we too are part of a gradual change that the future will determine as a series of convenient strata.
Lev, you and I agree on a great many things, but here is where we disagree (not on all things)
History is exactly what you say it is, but that historical flow does also have its “stops” for a lack
of a better word. It is clear that the boundary between two species is definable, Homo Sapiens
are defined differently than Homo Erectus because they are different. We can see that now,
but could the first member of the Homo Erectus family see themselves differently? In the flow of
history, it is rare that someone notices that they are something new or doing something new.
I doubt the person who discovered fire was given a second thought or had a second thought about it.
Now I think that archeology thinking and eschatology thinking is an excellent way to understand
two different ways of thinking. Archeology thinking is not about archeology but about a way of thinking.
Philosophical archeology thinking would be philosophers like C. S. Peirce and Wittgenstein. they
worked on clearing out the brush. Logical positivism and analytical philosophy would be an examples
of this. Is a word true or not, has its own value, (I guess) but it leads one now where to some vision of
what humans are or what the end game is. Eschatology thinking is about the vision or the idea of
where man is and where man could go. Past, present and future are present in eschatology philosophy.
the best modern example of this, is of course Nietzsche. He presented us with an idea of man’s movement
through history. Philosophy that doesn’t show us a future is just clearing the brush philosophy, which is
archeology philosophy. Marx was another eschatology philosopher. He had a vision of where we
we need to be, (he was right by the way and every day shows us how right he was) the so called
Marxist utopia’s were all written by followers of Marx well after he was dead. Read him and you will
see his vision, HIS vision, of where man goes from here.
This is a common enough misconception. There is a seamless continuum between He and Hs. And at no single point in history where one evolved from the other were they ‘different’. When the “Out of Africa 2” occurred, the newly emerging Hs met with branches of He now transformed into other varieties such as Homo Neanderthalis, and Neanderthalensis. There is much evidence that we were all still of the same species and interbred, until Hs emerged as the last version. But as you can imagine there is no direct single “origin” for any of these varieties, nor could there be. It’s a chicken and egg question.
Taking history in 200,000 steps you will see history in layers, but will be missing the nuance. But that would be a fact of historiography, not a story of the past as such.
It is only by this stadial approach that we area able to ‘define’ He against Hs, or Hn. Reality is not stadial, but continuous.
So… would the big bang not be an origin, if we accept that current, best account of things? I agree history is a continuous event. I could care less, to be honest, if there is an origin or not. But we sure as hell keep digging back into the past trying to find one… And we seem to stake some importance on this ‘primal’ event…
When it comes to it, since we’re on the topic, I don’t think history has an ‘end’ either. These are just useful references to frame our thinking. I think there is a target state, so to speak, that we are or should be aiming for, but no end of history itself as in the stoppage of time or what have you (don’t want to imply or start a physics conversation here with concepts like ‘time’, but I’m sure you get what I mean…).
So I don’t think this makes my project “fraught with a bad theory.” I can only assume the “iruptions” you see me invoking are the very ‘beginning’ and ‘end’ that I have just, more or less, undermined…
But let me put more of my cards on the table, to try and revitalize these ‘iruptions’ a bit… Traditionally speaking, history begins with writing. Sure, we could bleed this event into the past and find no clear origin, yadda, yadda, yadda, but let’s set that consideration aside for right now. I would want to change this ‘start’ and say that history should instead begin with the emergence of a collective vision of the end, and is itself defined by the collective action to realize it… Including all the ups and downs along the way, up until the ‘end’ of history when the vision is fulfilled (and time continues to go on).
Hopefully that gives a better idea of what I’m thinking here.
The Big Bang might well have been an origin, but it would be impossible to deny that there might be causal factors that led to it also. In the same way the idea that that might have been an uncaused event, is also impossible to say.
‘iruptions’ are not uncaused, but represent things of interest to human history that are of fresh interest to humans, as far as the causal world is concerned these are just another link in the chain of causality. To us they are steps, that might be called ‘new’ events. Events that, because of our subjective interest we are apt to think of as novel.
For example we might be interested to call our present age the “Space Age”. According to our interest we might point to Sputnik as the start. But we all know that it was not an event in isolation free from antecedents. Americans might according to their bias offer Neil Armstrong’s step on the moon. The point is that from an objective point of view, there is no “Space Age”, “Computer Age”, or any other boundary event.
Consider this quote from a film;“Come men of the Middle Ages we are about to embark upon the Hundred Year War”. Historiography imposes ‘origins’ and ‘events’ according not to objective facts, but from current interests.
Thus when you choose your moment;
… what are you actually doing? You are merely creating a myth of the past, and a false prediction about the eventual future.
Not a false prediction about the eventual future. Rather a vision of the future grounded in hope and faith that we can get there. This has nothing to do with prediction. No prediction has been made.
Perhaps a myth of the past has been posited. But not necessarily. If the vision was to coalesce today for the first time, and be presented today, and people were to shout for joy in response to it, and start driving collective action to achieve it, that would not be a myth. That would be the start of history. Of genesis.