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PARTISAN REVIEW
unity, and the universe as the concrete development of their interrela–
tion. This undertaking involved a redefinition of the forms and cate–
gories of traditional logic: they lost their mode of "yes" or "no,"
"either-or" and assumed that "ambiguous," dynamic, even contradictory
character which makes them so ridiculous to the protagonists of purity
but which corresponds so closely to reality. The realistic character of
dialectical thought comes to fruition in the interpretation of history. The
latter may best be illustrated by contrasting it with Popper's view that
historians are interested in "actual, singular, or specific events, rather
than in laws or generalizations." In contrast to the opposition between
"singular" and "law," "specific" and "general" expressed in Popper's
statement, the dialectical conception holds that the actual, specific,
singular event becomes comprehensible only if it is understood as con–
stituted by the "general," as the particular manifestation of a "law."
And this "general" is something very concrete and demonstrable, namely,
the society in which the specific events occur at a specific stage of its
development. The dialectical notion of historical laws implies no other
"destiny" than that which men create for themselves under the con–
ditions of unmastered nature and society. The less a society is rationally
organized and directed by the collective efforts of free men, the more
will it appear as an independent whole governed by "inexorable" laws.
The manner in which men explain and exploit nature, and the societal
institutions and relationships which they give themselves are actual and
specific historical events, but events which occur on a ground already
prepared, on a base already built. Once institutionalized, each society
has its framework of potentialities defining the scope and direction of
change. Historical determinism has freedom as a constitutive element:
the latter is defined and confined by the
"whole"~but
the whole can
be (and constantly is) redefined, so much so, that the historical process
cannot even be regarded as irreversible. There are "laws," there is his–
torical
logic
in the sequence of ancient slave society, feudalism, "free"
industrial capitalism, state capitalism and contemporary socialism: one
emerges
within
the other and develops, under the prevalent conditions,
its own laws of functioning as a whole system of material and intellec–
tual cuJture-a demonstrable "unity." However, these very laws do not
allow predictability of progress. The present situation indicates clearly
enough that a return to original barbarism appears as a historical pos–
sibility. Again: certainly not as an inexorable "destiny" in a cycle of
growth and decay, progress and regression, etc. but as a man-made
destiny, for which responsibility can be assigned and which can be ex–
plained (as failure, impotence, even impossibility to act otherwise)-
