ABSTRACT
In this account, a point of first importance is: how can a theory of history start with a generalized sentence and, moreover, build up a developmental sequence throughout ‘History’ - how can it proceed in the fashion of philosophies o f history which I have here criticized in detail, and proceed in a way resembling the ontological overdetermin ation of our life experiences and ideals? This suspicion should be, to the extent that it can be, eliminated without self-delusion. The last remark is important, for the time has also come to confess: it cannot be completely eliminated. To replace philosophy of history by a theory of history is in itself an idea. We are obliged to live up to it but we cannot live up to it totally. The theory of history committed itself to reflect upon itself historically, but this is exactly why it has to reflect on Togetherness as the absolute present which cannot be circumvent ed. I accepted the obligation to understand all histories going by their own norms and not mine, but it is I who understand them, and the categorical framework, along with the set of values through which I understand them, are mine. If I make the proposition that ‘we are historicity’, then by this very act I start to answer the question about the sense o f historical existence, a question which has only been raised 328
in modern age. We alone identify human existence with historical existence. But this is precisely the question one has to raise and try to answer, here and now. It is the same question raised and answered in different ways by philosophies of history. This is why one cannot completely leave them behind.
