GVER Articles
Implications of Historical Progress
OMAR MOAD
GVER, Vol. 5 No. 2,
(2004)
Often, on the ideological battlefield of world politics, one side identifies its
agenda as progress and the opposition as regress. Citing history as its vindication
with the claim that one is on the ‘right side’ of history and the opposition in the
‘dustbin’, presupposing that history is itself progressive. But historical progress
presupposes a purpose of humanity that is independent of human aspirations – a
‘transcendent human telos’. Consequently, commitment to the existence of such a
telos, as well as an account of its nature and metaphysical possibility are necessary
conditions of the coherence of any ideology claiming to represent historical progress.