“History, too, is meaningful only by indicating some transcendent purpose beyond the actual facts. … To venture a statement about the meaning of historical events is possible only when their telos becomes apparent.”

—  Karl Löwith

Meaning in History (1949), p. 5

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "History, too, is meaningful only by indicating some transcendent purpose beyond the actual facts. … To venture a statem…" by Karl Löwith?
Karl Löwith photo
Karl Löwith 4
German philosopher 1897–1973

Related quotes

Meher Baba photo

“Life becomes meaningful and all activities are purposeful only on the basis of faith in the enduring reality.”

Meher Baba (1894–1969) Indian mystic

Message at Pickfair, Beverly Hills, California (1 June 1932), as quoted in Life Is A Jest (1974) edited by A. K. Hajra <!-- or 6 January? 1932 Me p100-101 -->
General sources
Context: Life becomes meaningful and all activities are purposeful only on the basis of faith in the enduring reality. … The greatest romance possible in life is to discover this Eternal Reality in the midst of infinite change. Once, one has experienced this, one sees oneself in everything that lives, one recognises all of life as his life, everybody's interests as his own. One is no longer bound by habits of the past, no longer swayed by the hopes of the future — One lives in and enjoys each present moment to the full. There is no greater romance in life than this adventure in realization.

“The only valid rule about the proper length of a statement is that it achieve its purpose effectively.”

Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990) Canadian eductor

Source: Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977), p. 10: Introduction

Lotfi A. Zadeh photo

“As complexity rises, precise statements lose meaning and meaningful statements lose precision.”

Lotfi A. Zadeh (1921–2017) Electrical engineer and computer scientist
Karl Pearson photo

“I simply assert that the universe alters, is "becoming;" what it is becoming I will not venture to say. ...the individual too is altering, is not only a "being" but also a "becoming."”

Karl Pearson (1857–1936) English mathematician and biometrician

These alterations... I shall—merely for convenience—term life.
The Ethic of Freethought (Mar 6, 1883)

Felix Adler photo

“We seek to become morally certain — that is, certain for moral purposes — of what is beyond the reach of demonstration. But our moral optimism must include the darkest facts that pessimism can point to, include them and transcend them.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 9 : Ethical Outlook
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)
Context: Theologians often say that faith must come first, and that morality must be deduced from faith. We say that morality must come first, and faith, to those whose nature fits them to entertain it, will come out of the experience of a deepened moral life as its richest, choicest fruit.
Precisely because moral culture is the aim, we cannot be content merely to lift the mass of mankind above the grosser forms of evil. We must try to advance the cause of humanity by developing in ourselves, as well as in others, a higher type of manhood and womanhood than the past has known.
To aid in the evolution of a new conscience, to inject living streams of moral force into the dry veins of materialistic communities is our aim.
We seek to come into touch with the ultimate power in things, the ultimate peace in things, which yet, in any literal sense, we know well that we cannot know. We seek to become morally certain — that is, certain for moral purposes — of what is beyond the reach of demonstration. But our moral optimism must include the darkest facts that pessimism can point to, include them and transcend them.

Ernst Gombrich photo

“Images apparently occupy a curious position somewhere between the statements of language, which are intended to convey a meaning, and the things of nature, to which we only can give a meaning.”

Ernst Gombrich (1909–2001) art historian

E. H. Gombrich, Symbolic Images, (1972).

Karl Marx photo

“In order to abolish the idea of private property, the idea of communism is completely sufficient. It takes actual communist action to abolish actual private property. History will com to it; and this movement, which in theory we already know to be a self-transcending movement, will constitute in actual fact a very severe and protracted process. But we must regard it as a real advance to have gained beforehand a consciousness of the limited character a well as of the goal of this historical movement - and a consciousness which reaches out beyond it.”

Karl Marx book Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Source: Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, p. 99, The Marx-Engels Reader

“During the last few years it has become apparent that the concept of "machine" must be very greatly extended if it is to include the most modern developments. Especially is this true if we are studying the brain and attempting to identify the type of mechanism that is responsible for the brain’s outstanding powers of thought and action. It has become apparent that when we used to doubt whether the brain could be a machine, our doubts were due chiefly to the fact that by ‘‘machine’’ we understood some mechanism of very simple type. Familiar with the bicycle and the typewriter, we were in great danger of taking them as the type of all machines. The last decade, however, has corrected this error. It has taught us how restricted our outlook used to be; for it developed mechanisms that far transcended the utmost that had been thought possible, and taught us that ‘‘mechanism’’ was still far from exhausted in its possibilities. Today we know only that the possibilities extend beyond our farthest vision.”

W. Ross Ashby (1903–1972) British psychiatrist

W. Ross Ashby (1951), "Statistical Machinery". In: Thales Vol 7. p.1 as cited in: Peter M. Asaro (2008) " From Mechanisms of Adaptation to Intelligence Amplifiers: The Philosophy of W. Ross Ashby http://cybersophe.org/writing/Asaro%20Ashby.pdf"

Cenk Uygur photo

“The claims of an Armenian Genocide are not based on historical facts. If the history of the period is examined it becomes evident that in fact no such genocide took place.”

Cenk Uygur (1970) Turkish-American online news show host

"Column: Historical Fact or Falsehood?", The Daily Pennsylvanian (20 November 1991) http://www.webcitation.org/68YqvmgSY; but see: "Rescinding Daily Pennsylvanian Article" https://tytnetwork.com/2016/04/22/rescinding-daily-pennsylvanian-article/ by Cenk Uygur (22 April 2016).

Vera Stanley Alder photo

“To-day we can only ennumerate some of the new methods of healing, in order to indicate the possibilities ahead and suggest avenues of exploration.”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Chapter XXXV The Opportunity Today
Context: This will be the science of the future.

Related topics