Das Ende der (Natur-)Geschichte?

Abstract

AbstractEvolution seems tobe a perfect example of a historical process: It began with the earliest “living” units, progressed to massive diversity and disparity, and resulted in our recent lifeworld, the subject-matter of the evolutionary biologist. Yet some irritation remains considering the logical grammar of “history”, as it seems to introduce non-functional aspects into evolutionarytheory– which is often addressed as contingency in evolutionarybiology. But even reducing the “historical” aspect of evolutionary biology to a functional understanding of lifeworld, we have to consider the specific historicity of theepistemicsituation of the evolutionary biologist. This paper argues for the relevance of the explication of this peculiarepistemicsituation, taking into account the recent systemic transformations of evolutionary theory.The argument is developed in three steps: first, a revision of the use of temporal expressions in (bio-)sciences, revealing the prevalence of a non-modal understanding of time, which leads to “thin” temporal characterizations of biological processes. Second, based upon biology’s shift toward system paradigms, the formal structure of recent evolutionary approaches is shown to result in a “loss of historicity”. Finally, the consequences for the self-understanding of humansas evolutionarylifeforms are explicated.This reconstruction of the difference between historical and evolutionary judgment emphasizes the relevance of the modal aspects of temporality, which is demonstrated by considering a significant shift of the underlying temporal frames. Accordingly to human beings ashistoricalentities, the differences between natural history, prehistory and history proper are relocated within the concept ofhistoryitself.