Francis Fukuyama and the End of History

Abstract

Francis Fukuyama has argued that history has come to an end. His argument is a philosophical reading of history which derives philosophical implications from empirical views about human economy, society, recent history and the human conditions for self-realization and flourishing. It is this movement between empirical description and philosophical conceptualization that my paper explores, a movement which is both fascinating and problematical. The paper does not seek to “refute” Fukuyama, whose ideas have great currency with significant reason and assumes that there is some thing significant about the idea of the end of history. It is rather concerned to insert a certain skepticism about the dialectic between empirical description (of the historian, the economist, the student of human nature) and philosophical conceptualization (in the manner of Hegel). What the paper comes down against is the assurance that a philosophical structure can be assigned to history. The paper is part of a larger project about philosophical constructions of finality (the end of art, the end of society, the end of history, the end of reality) where similar conclusions are drawn. These are drawn in order to suggest that much of the modern/postmodern debate operates within an Hegelian frame work that entitles a philosophical reading of human affairs with respect to their finality, a finality which is supposed to be happening now.

S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.19(3) 2000: 223-234