Bill,
1. Change over time is not necessarily conscious of that change. A
tree falling is a change, it is not history. All history, in the strict
sense, is history for a subject conscious of that history. All other
so-called history (both logically and historically :)) is derivative.
Aristotle began "natural histories" as a break with the way the world was
cognized in other "social categories" (see Marcel Mauss "Primitive
Classification" or Levi-Strauss or any good ethnography of pre-agricultural
society and we find change in the natural world dealt with in terms of
social categories derived from kinship and mythology.)
2. Cyclic change is manifestly not history; history is open ended (Mircea
Eliade's "Myth and History" is interesting in this regard)
The famous I-Ching "The Book of Changes" is all about change but not
about history at all.
The tides of the seas are change, they are not history at all, not
in any sense. The rotation of the planets around the sun is change it is
not history, not even so-called natural history. For that we would
go to: the evolution of the solar system and even this is derivative.
Do you want more examples?
The key issue for me is: once the domain of "history" is determined, what is
it that makes "walking the dog" not historical, only accepting a dog (e.g.
"Checkers"), historical. The answer appears obvious but immediately brings
the collective subject out as ground.
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Barowy <wbarowy@yahoo.com>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 4:27 AM
Subject: Re: History
>
> --- "Paul H.Dillon" <illonph@pacbell.net> wrote:
> > Of course I would make the same statment Eric. A gun in a pile of salt
> > undergoes changes but these changes do not constitute history in any
sense
> > of the word.
> >
>
> So Paul, is the difference between change over time and and history as the
> latter is the recording of the former????
>
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