1. The document discusses concepts related to teleology, or the belief that natural processes are goal-oriented, and critiques its use in explaining history and development. It examines how teleology can hide alternative trajectories and present modernity as inevitable. 2. Key concepts discussed include the construction of identity through recollection, the encounter with the Other, and the idea of multiple overlapping universalisms and historicisms. The document argues against presenting a single encompassing narrative. 3. It analyzes how postcolonial studies and theories of complexity rejected linear determinism and universal norms, instead embracing fluctuating histories and greater layers of complexity. The conclusion discusses dealing with a multiplicity of universalisms going forward.

1. Imagining Futures
Belgrade 01/07/2017
A postcolonial critique to
teleology
1
International Summer School in Comparative Conflict Studies
Except for all images and where otherwise noted, the content of
this document is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International license.
Marco Crosa
marcocrosa80@gmail.com

2. ● Used often to convey a meaning of
incompleteness when addressing a
person, a community, a culture,
etc… (an Other)
● Patronizing and mocking attitude of
the addresser.
● Structuralism, meaning in a
linguistic context. Character of
temporality.
● Staging Words. Evaluation and
judgement in reference of an
implicit timescale.
2
Wording (and staging)
the Others

3. Teleology, from Greek telos (end, goal, purpose) + logia
(logos). Come from the men ability to posit a goal,
purpose and its universalization in every aspect of the
natural world.
Finalism, Presentism, Backward explanations.
Quite widespread in biology (and petrified in common
language): Teeth are designed to chew; bird wings
developed for flying; “chins to grow beards”. Functionalist,
design, adaptationist program.
Positing modernity as the inevitable goal of history hiding
all the possible trajectories. Top down and bottom up
temporal explanations.
Has history already written? Is any alternative possible?
“Is future given?” (Ilya Prigogine)
3
“Aristotle argues that there is no other
way to explain natural generation than
by reference to what lies at the end
of the process. This has explanatory
priority over the principle that is
responsible for initiating the process of
generation.” (from Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
Teleology - The fallacy of
Backward Explanations

4. “Complexity studies was basically a rejection of the linear
time-reversible determinism that prevailed from Isaac
Newton to Albert Einstein [...] They [ the proponent of
complexity studies] maintained that is intrinsically
impossible to determine the future trajectories of any
projection. For them, science is not about reducing the
complex to the simple but explaining ever greater
layer of complexity. [...]
Cultural studies was similarly a rejection of the basic
concept that had informed the humanities: that there are
universal canons of beauty and natural law norms of the
good, and that these can be learned, taught and
legitimated. [...]
It is possible that the new epistemologically centripetal
tendencies of the structure of knowledge may lead to a
reunified epistemology.” (Wallerstein I, European
Universalism, pp 68-70) 4
History by Fluctuations, a
reunified epistemology

5. Two (interlaced) lines of thought:
● Recollection and Identity
● the Encounter and the
Encompassing Narration
Some main concepts: Master and Slave
Dialectic/Struggle for
Recognition/Recollection
Restricted and General Hegel.
5
Western Historicism and
Hegel’s Legacy

6. Phenomenology of the Spirit: an introspective travelogue.
Turning the gaze to the consciousness: Erinnerung as a
cinematographic recollection of images. The same
(Identity) in the flow of experiences (changing). Identity and
(belonging to) a History.
Plotting memories and the construction of Identity. From
Brotherhood to Nationalism in former Yugoslavia: pushing
the boundary of memory back in the past.
Hegel and Napoleon, modernity and Absolute Spirit. The
final stage (and identity) of western history?
6
ERINERRUNG and the
Construction of the
Identity

7. Hegel’s Master and Slave dialectic and the modern
state.
The encounter with the Other and the struggle for
recognition.
The encompassing world. Ex: Said’s One state
solution in Palestine; Kojeve and the European Union;
accretion of Pantheon in conversion studies.
The clash of cultures and the overlapping of
historicisms. Hegemonic and Subaltern agents in
Gramsci (and thus in postcolonial studies)
7
The Encompassing
(creative) World

8. Wave of Democratisation and
Transitology: applying teleology.
Transition Vs Transformation. The Balkan
example.
Introjection of Modernism. Elite and
“Ordinary People”. “Can the Subaltern
Speak?”
Provincialising Europe, a postcolonial
critique. The problem of Universality.
8
Universalisation and
Deconstruction of
Western Historicism
“The first debate [on the pot-communist
trajectories of former Yugoslavia]
concerned whether it makes more
sense to describe the change in the
region as transition or transformation.
[...] The argument was between those
who believed that the region was
undergoing a transition toward a
definite goal and those who believed
that the countries of the region were not
heading toward any clear goal or in any
definite direction.”
(Ramet P. S., Trajectories of
Post-Communist transformation)

9. Multiple historicisms, multiple modernities?
“We are at the end of a long era, which can go by many names.
One appropriate name could be the era of European
universalism. We are moving into the era after that. One possible
alternative is a multiplicity of universalisms that would resemble
a network of universal universalisms.[...] There is no guarantee
that we shall arrive there. [...] So we must all simply persist in
trying to analyze a world-system in its age of transition, in
clarifying the alternatives available and thereby the moral
choices we have to make, and finally, in illuminating the possible
political paths we wish to chose” (Wallerstein I, European
Universalism, p. 84)
9
Dealing with a
Multiplicity of
Universalisms

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