A Preliminary Concept of History

Abstract

We may arrive at the transcendental concept of history by reflecting on how history is conceived in everyday life. Ordinary language employs a concept of history that is merely empirical; it can easily be criticized as inadequate, or indeed as absurd. Yet it is precisely this concept that serves as the point of departure for the transcendental. For history’s transcendental concept reveals itself only against the backdrop of the empirical; were it not so, it would be better to speak of history as transcendent rather than transcendental. Here, however, I will scrupulously avoid characterizing history as transcendent. I will do so in order to counter the misconception that history, as defined below, is a given thing that lies beyond empirical history: a given thing that may be grasped as a different kind or different order of experience.