History Begins in the Future: On Historical Sensibility in the Age of Technology

The humanities and the social sciences have been hostile to future visions in the postwar period. The most famous victim of their hostility was the enterprise of classical philosophy of history, condemned to illegitimacy precisely because of its fundamental engagement with the future. Contrary to this attitude, in this essay I argue that there is no history (neither in the sense of the course of human affairs nor in the sense of historical writing) without having a future vision in the first place. History, its very possibility, begins in the future, in the postulation of a future where further change can take place. Our notions of history, change, and the future are interdependent, they come as one package, meaning that the abandonment of one entails the abandonment of the other two. As to the current situation, although lately it became a commonplace to diagnose our age as presentist, Western societies are deeply engaged in a vision of the future revolving around artificial intelligence and the prospect of technological singularity. This technological vision is best characterized as the prospect of unprecedented change, substantially differing from Enlightenment and nineteenth-century developmental visions of future. If our notions of history, change, and the future are necessarily interdependent, and if we have a characteristically new future vision, it follows that our historical sensibility is already transformed and is accommodated to the prospect of unprecedented change. The ultimate aim of this essay is to outline this transformed historical sensibility of our technological age

人类的故事与后人类的挑战

Simon ZB. 人类的故事与后人类的挑战. 史学集刊 - Collected Papers of History Studies. 2019;Sum No. 180(1 / 2019):65-78.当下后人类的科技前景挑战了我们过去对于历史的理解，但同时又激发我们以新的方式去认识历 史。一方面，将后人类作为一个新的时代，表明时代转变的历史要求; 另一方面，后人类假设一种新的、优于 人类的主体将在这个新的时代诞生，由此消解了现代西方历史认知中的人类主体。本文试图以人类的故事为参 照从而理解后人类，并考察在三个连续的阶段中作为历史中心主体的人类之命运: 首先，探究古典历史哲学如 何通过发明人类这一主体从而获得宏大历史叙事( 亦即人类的故事) 本身的完整性; 第二，叙述近半个世纪的后 殖民与性别研究是如何猛烈抨击这个中心主体的，而其批评针对的是人类故事的普世性; 第三，分析后人类如 何挑战人类的故事及后殖民与性别批评。后殖民与性别批评使史学变得碎片化，但保留了小范围内历史叙事的 可能性。与此不同的是，后人类并不质疑人类故事的可行性，因其要求以优于人类的主体取代人类，所以必然 会唤醒作为整体的“人类”。此外，作者认为后人类代表了对现代西方历史学现状和历史叙事可能性———小历 史抑或大历史，碎片的抑或普世的———的根本挑战

Tapasztalat, jelenlét, történelem

Simon ZB. Tapasztalat, jelenlét, történelem. Aetas. 2013;28(1):160-177

The story of humanity and the challenge of posthumanity

Simon ZB. The Story of Humanity and the Challenge of Posthumanity. History of the Human Sciences. 2019;32(2):101-120.Today’s technological-scientific prospect of posthumanity simultaneously evokes and defies historical understanding. One the one hand, it implies a historical claim of an epochal transformation concerning posthumanity as a new era. On the other, by postulating the birth of a novel, better-than-human subject for this new era, it eliminates the human subject of modern Western historical understanding. In this essay, I attempt to understand posthumanity as measured against the story of humanity as the story of history itself. I examine the fate of humanity as the central subject of history in three consecutive steps: first, by examining how classical philosophies of history achieved the integrity of the greatest historical narrative of history itself through the very invention of humanity as its subject; second, by recounting how this central subject came under heavy criticism by postcolonial and gender studies in the last half-century, targeting the universalism of the story of humanity as the greatest historical narrative of history; and third, by conceptualizing the challenge of posthumanity against both the story of humanity and its criticism. Whereas criticism fragmented history but retained the possibility of smaller-scale narratives, posthumanity does not doubt the feasibility of the story of humanity. Instead, it necessarily invokes humanity, if only in order to be able to claim its supersession by a better-than-human subject. In that, it represents a fundamental challenge to the modern Western historical condition and the very possibility of historical narratives – small-scale or large-scale, fragmented or universal

Why the Anthropocene Has No History: Facing the Unprecedented

Simon ZB. Why the Anthropocene Has No History: Facing the Unprecedented. The Anthropocene Review. 2017;4(3):239-245.This paper argues that the tendency to invoke modern historical thinking in trying to make sense of the Anthropocene amounts to an untenable, self-contradictory, and self-defeating enterprise. There is a fundamental contradiction between the prospect of unprecedented change as entailed by the Anthropocene and the deep continuity of a processual historical change. On the one hand, conceiving the Anthropocene as the prospect of the unprecedented creates a demand for immediate action to prevent future catastrophe. On the other hand, pointing out the inequalities in the historical process of bringing about the Anthropocene creates a demand for social justice. Although both are legitimate and important demands, they are incompatible. They represent different temporalities, different conceptions of change, and different modes of action. Inasmuch as the Anthropocene appears as unprecedented, it does not have a processual history; and inasmuch as it has a processual history, it is not the Anthropocene

A mikrotörténészről: A történetírás konfliktusa a filozófiai abszolút ésszel

Simon ZB. A mikrotörténészről: A történetírás konfliktusa a filozófiai abszolút ésszel. Sic Itur Ad Astra. 2006;18(1-2):9-42

Az újra mozgásba lendült történelem

Simon ZB. Az újra mozgásba lendült történelem. 2000. 2013;25(9):64-74

Reflexivitás a történetírásban

Simon ZB. Reflexivitás a történetírásban. Korall. 2013;(52):169-186

Interpretáció és történetiség

Simon ZB. Interpretáció és történetiség. Aetas. 2015;30(2):172-187