Philosophy of History and the Use of Analytical Lenses

I have been reading about philosophies of history recently and I find these to be fascinating. Three of the philosophies I read about are those of Whitehead, Marx, and Toynbee. Each philosophy differs teleologically, that is to say that each philosophy sees the fate of the world leading in different directions.

Whitehead believed that humans are presented with two choices, advance or decadence; to fight against either of these choices is to fight against the very essence of the universe. Marx believed that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable." Toynbee's philosophy was grounded in deeply Christian values of the crucifixion of Christ and his resurrection and the meaning of these events today and in the future. Toynbee also believed that "it is the historical function of civilizations to serve, by their downfalls, as stepping stones to a progressive process of the revelation of always deeper religious insight."

In the research that I have been doing and in my graduate level historiography class, we studied philosophies of history and the general consensus (which I accept) was that these philosophies are untenable. History and the events that make up history are comprised of many different unique episodes and to say that there is a unifying theme to all of history is incorrect. Many philosophies need to be applied to history to make any sense of the events of our world.

In my research on the Ottawa Indians, I use the analytical tool of colonialism but I have also used other tools in studying the Ottawa. While writing my thesis I turned to economic tools to help me understand the Ottawa economy. There are many other tools that could be used to unearth the history of the Ottawa in the Maumee Valley, however, I find colonialism to be the most productive analytical tool.

I love historiography and looking for new analytical lenses for viewing history. One of the most fascinating aspects of history to me is the way you can change your perspective on a certain event and see something new and refreshing in an old topic. I am really looking forward to attending NAU due to their focus on the philosophy of history and theory, I think that receiving a graduate education at this school will be difficult but an amazing challenge.