EL CONCEPTO DE PROGRESO: DE SAN AGUSTÍN A HERDER

Abstract

The emergence of the concept of prog ress is cur rently associated with the Enlightenment or, going somewhat further back, with the querelle des anciens et des modernes in the 17th century. Yet the notion of progress can be traced back to a significantly earlier period: the foundations of a possible Christian prog ressivism were, in my opinion, laid by St. Augustine; this essay explores its guidelines. J. G. Herder's reaction against the notion of progress proposed by the Enlightenment possesses also a Christian inspiration. While Enlightened prog ressivism conceives past cultures as overcoming steps in a rising staircase, Herder, in turn, claims that each of them amounted to a "self-centered sphere" and was therefore valuable in its own right. The sense of the existence of past generations cannot lie in paving the way for future fulf illment as this would be incompatible with divine love, which estimates each of its creatures in its own right, as an unrepeatable individual. In contrast to Enlightened arrogance (contempt for the "obscurantist" past), Herder presents a "democratic" view of History within which all epochs have the same value.