Although he was not the first Western philosopher, Plato was the first to define clearly the aim that has characterized Western philosophy since its beginnings. The principal capacities in which the human being acts are scientific, moral, mathematical, artistic, political, and religious, and the aim of philosophical activity was to achieve a standpoint providing complete explanation and justification by finding and eliminating the elements of dogmatism, unrealized ignorance, and mere hypothesis by which, in the capacities mentioned, the human being is influenced. The ideal envisaged was the self-inclusive understanding, achieved by the understanding's successive advancement and containment of all conceivable criticism of itself. The criticisms by Parmenides and Zeno of Ionian and Pythagorean physics and Socrates’ criticism of various aspects of Athenian life were excellent examples.

It was Voltaire, apparently, who coined the term “philosophy of history” in his Essai sur les moeurs (Geneva, 1756). Since then, however, as a field of historical study philosophy of history has been pursued only intermittently and more by philosophers and moralists than by historians—witness the famous names: Herder, Hegel, Marx; Spencer, Spengler, Toynbee. In consequence, philosophy of history has been characterized by philosophical speculation and/or intellectual systematizing which, empirically considered, has not closely reflected reality. Yet some of the most recent writing on the subject together with the advance of archeological knowledge and the development of social science theory, especially anthropological theory, allows at this juncture perhaps at least the beginnings of an empirical understanding of the longer sweep of human history, i.e., of the history of civilizations or of human societies since the inception of civilization. This essay is an attempt at formulating a working hypothesis for just such an understanding.

When, under the tutelage of the “Fathers” Enfantin and Saint-Amand Bazard, the disciples of Saint-Simon were initiated into the exemplary “proletarian” life, they were re-enacting the ways of the first Christians. Styling themselves as “apostles,” by way of justifying their doctrines, they invoked the authority of myth. The “City of God” referred to in their vows was no Utopian invention, but the “New Jerusalem,” the recreation of the original city; the New Book summarizing the ideology of a radical renovatio, was the sacred text of a New Christianity. To the avowed Saint-Simonians, the Golden Age was not the source of some irrepressible nostalgia, but rather the promise of a social perfection that must be realized upon Earth in the more or less immediate future. The pilgrims of Ménilmontant were not unfamiliar with the myth of the Three Ages : did not one of them translate into French Lessing's “incendiary” essay on The Education of the Human Race? (Even while that new interpretation of millennial prophecy by the Calabrian abbot was, through Hegel, Schelling, and Fichte, infiltrating into libertarian socialism and Marxism.)

The sports competitions which have taken on such importance in the life and world of today are connected, over the centuries, with the ideas and customs of the Greek people. The Greek heritage still manifests itself in the collective and individual sports today, and our contemporaries were not mistaken in recognizing this fact. After an interval of 1500 years a new series of Olympic Games began, reviving those pan-Hellenic games which, every four years, gathered athletes and crowds from all over the Greek world at Olympia. It is of utmost interest to study closely the similarities, relationships, and differences which exist between our ways of competing and the ways in which our distant forebears competed. Such a study is enthralling and requires the simultaneous use of all the auxiliary disciplines such as ancient history, the study of literary texts, the study of inscriptions, and archeology.

To the memory of the ephemeral goddess Sedna, whose huge body reached out across the depths of the Arctic seas, whose hair was forever matted, full of ordure, clogged with bear furs and the snouts of narwhales, and could be combed only by a shaman on one of his cosmic journeyes.

The inukshuk are piles of rough stone, shaped like men, and found on the coasts of the Canadian Arctic. I am well aware that they have never found a place in the history of statuary. However, they are unquestionably representations of the human form, and no one would confuse them with the simple cairns raised here and there by so many nomadic tribes in the course of their wanderings. They are disappearing, or have already disappeared with the recent, swift, and far reaching changes in Eskimo life. It is really almost a matter of chance as to whether one recognizes that they represent, or represented, a remarkable image of man. For me, the chance was a two-fold one, so to speak.

There is no profession where social change receives more approbation and less application than psychiatry. It is considered salubrious for patients and clinicians alike. This zeal for the innovative has produced an amazing proliferation of therapies. Beyond this psychiatry even preempts a trailblazing role among the behavioral sciences for its evolutionary approach. Freud's social side has been resurrected and now it is acknowledged that the founding father devoted considerable attention to the social aspects of psychoanalysis. That this tendency is alive and prospering is inferred from the emergence of psychohistory, which may even replace community psychiatry—whose lustre has faded —as an example. However, before the profession is crowned with laurel, it might be well to determine whether this appraisal is apparent or real. A more critical analysis seems to indicate that psychiatry has incorporated social influences—up to a point. At first the social component was given consideration.