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Filosofía de la historia: una introducción iconoclasta / Juan José Cruz
240
Quién fue el creador de la losofía de la historia es una cuestión suma-
mente discutida. Podríamos argumentar en favor del lósofo italiano Giam-
battista Vico (1668-1744) y su libro Principios de una ciencia nueva en torno a la
naturaleza común de las naciones. Para Vico, la historia es la realidad especíca-
mente humana; es frente a la historia, su creación y actividad como podemos
concebir al hombre como hecho a imagen y semejanza de Dios. Como pun-
to de originalidad, Vico propuso una visión de la historia no lineal como en la
tradición cristiana, sino cíclica, en la que las naciones, a semejanza de la vi-
da humana, cumplen un desarrollo que se extiende desde la infancia hasta la
muerte y la resurrección de sus posibilidades creadoras.
Incluso podríamos mirar más atrás y llegar a San Agustín, que con su obra
Ciudad de Dios —una obra que, en principio, tiene nes apologéticos— realiza
una amplia interpretación del sentido de la historia entera. Por primera vez,
San Agustín nos ayuda a entender que la historia no es repetición; las cosas
que permanecen, las conquistas denitivas, son las que constituyen la estruc-
tura de la historia.
Sin embargo, la losofía de la historia fue reconocida por primera vez co-
mo materia independiente en el periodo iniciado con la publicación de la pri-
mera parte de las Ideas para la losofía de la historia de la humanidad, de Herder,
en 1744. Dicho estudio tenía como nalidad llegar a comprender el curso de la
historia en su conjunto, demostrar que, a pesar de las muchas anomalías e in-
consistencias maniestas que presentaba, podía verse a la historia como una
unidad que encarnaba un plan general, un plan que, una vez descifrado, ilu-
minaría el curso detallado de los acontecimientos y nos permitiría considerar
satisfactorio, para la razón en un sentido especial, todo el proceso histórico.
Centrados ya en el siglo , nos encontramos con una visión canónica
de la losofía de la historia encabezada por Immanuel Kant. Este, a partir de
una serie de opúsculos —entre los que destacan Idea de una historia universal en
sentido cosmopolita, Comienzo presunto de la historia humana, Si el género humano
se halla en progreso constante hacia mejor—, compone una losofía de la historia.
La losofía de la historia —una expresión que no debemos atribuir a él sino a
Voltaire con La philosophie de l’histoire de 1765— se desarrolla en Kant en medio
de una dialéctica entre naturaleza y libertad. Como él mismo escribe en Idea
de una historia universal en clave cosmopolita:
Cualquiera sea el concepto que, en plano metafísico, tengamos de la libertad de la
voluntad, sus manifestaciones fenoménicas, las acciones humanas, se hallan de-
terminadas, lo mismo que los demás fenómenos naturales, por las leyes generales
de la Naturaleza. La historia, que se ocupa de la narración de esos fenómenos, nos
hace concebir la esperanza, a pesar de que las causas de los mismos pueden yacer