Gods and Monsters: The Scientific Method Applied to the Human Condition - Book II Page 18

  Chapter 14:

  Determinisms various or several theories of the factors determinants

  Alessandro Tassoni had took for granted that there is not a continuous progress of history, since it is obvious that there are solutions of continuity which allow periods of decline “successive at periods of excellence”. Charles Perrault exceeded the contradiction between the idea of a constant progress of knowledge and the deduction of the feudal decadence, affirming that the decline it is produced by factors unrelated at the human being and at his nature, since the human nature is always equal to itself (at least in the laws that the herself govern). He have istinguished, correctly, between social progress and scientific progress, saying that only the latter is progressive, being the knowledge progressive, that underlies of it, in light of experience. George Hakewill spoke of “a sort of circular progress” as a result of the go back over of the history (1). The Abbot of Saint - Pierre acknowledged that there has been no progress in the field moral and cultural, in the passage from the “classicism” to “modernity”, but considered that it had done a social progress, by virtue of the membership, of scientific progress, at “human reason universal” (2). The baron of Holbach spoke of “material nature” as of the only author of history, in contrast with the human being, the which last is part of nature and, as such, is: neither good nor bad, at birth (3).

  Pietro d'Abano had claimed the determinism of Averroes, deepening the his knowledge up to include in it, the birth of philosophies and of the religions (4). The determinism, like every other interpretative scheme, “risk” of limit the historical representation (5). This risk must be properly assessed, and it is necessary adapt the the theoretical framework to the effective historical reality, in a continuous process of the refinement of the interpretative instruments. Henri Pirenne not adopted a economism “technical and restricted"”(6), but he tried to incorporate this economism in a cultural vision wide. Emile Durkheim had an idea of the ontological determination of structural reality on individuals (7), stating that individuals are determined, in their nature, from structural reality. This concept is clearly irrational, since the human being has given rise to the structural reality (though unintentionally and unconsciously) and cannot, therefore, be one his creature.