The Philosophical Understanding of History as Revival in Present and through inner Experience

The first question raised and has to be answered is: what is the form of history’s revival in present, inside the subject and the society, without being intruded by the presence of an absolute historicism? History is not possible to be considered as self-consciousness of the present – as the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce supported – and to be identified with the very life of spirit, without the latter being self-questioning itself. The consideration of man as microcosm and of the history of the world as macroanthropos can reinforce the position for the existence of an alive history, and of man as a historical being par excellence. The tension towards modernity and the tension towards the past are considered only partly controversial, because both are necessary and supplementary. An especially important way of apprehension in present, and contemporary elaboration of historical past, is the inner experience. The contribution of Wilhelm Dilthay was very important at this point, because he emphasized the difference between the sciences of nature and humanities, based on the fact that the latter constitute a more familiar space for man. The idea of a new, internal dimension of history as meta-history, was elaborated in 20th century by Νicolai Alexandrowitsch Berdjajew, who believed that the Incarnation is the point par excellence for the introduction of the existential time inside historical. The idea of history as inner experience is included in the effort of “sympathetic apprehension” of historical past, and the criticism against it (e.g. by Positivism) didn’t diminish its value. It contributes to the definition of every dimension of the existing, allowing an opening to the future, without having a metaphysical or transcendental character. At the end, the dimension of time in itself always will escape us and none definition of it could be accepted as absolute.