About This EpisodeIn this episode of Notions of Progress, we explore the fascinating evolution of progress thinking with Professor Tyson Retz, an intellectual historian at the University of Stavanger in Norway and author of "Progress and the Scale of History" (Cambridge University Press, 2022). Professor Retz introduces his innovative five-category framework that traces various conceptions of progress as part of a layered and contingent perspective from antiquity to the present day.Five Categories of Progress: Periodizations from Antiquity to the PresentNo Progress - Why the ancients couldn't conceive of progress as we understand it. "Societies far and wide in the ancient world believed that time destroyed things rather than improved them." (Retz, 2022, p. 13)Absolute Progress - Universal history, stadial theory (civilizations move through stages), and the emergence of progress as a "collective singular" blending scientific, moral, and human advancement. (Retz, 2022, p. 16)Relative Progress - Progress as unevenly distributed and context-dependent. "Progress for some mean[s] decline for others." (Retz, 2022, p. 6)Everybody's Progress - The tension between collective state imposition of historical direction versus spontaneous market order (e.g. Neoliberalism, the rejection of historicism). "Economic growth became the dominant historical narrative in the twentieth century." (Retz, 2022, p. 45)Anti-Progress (Contemporary) - Contemporary rejection or skepticism toward progress narratives, driven by environmental crisis, a focus on the impact of humans across geological times,deep and big history (an expansive historical view extending well beyond the emergence of human existence and encompassing a wide range of areas of exploration). (Retz, 2022, pp. 7-16, from the Introduction)Major ThemesWe discuss expanded ideas of scale in shaping progress narratives, the importance of "domain specificity" in analyzing particular historical claims, progress as a "collective singular"—a layered understanding comprised of multiple meanings, statistics as state narratives of progress, and the tension between optimism and pessimism in contemporary progress debates.Fascinating Historical InsightsWhy ancient Greeks celebrated advancement but didn't believe in "progress" - The Greeks recognized technical improvements in specific domains but lacked the conceptual framework to view humanity as progressing through time as a unified whole in the way it is viewed in the modern era.Japan's influence on "marginalized states" in the late 19th-early 20th century - Japan's rapid modernization provided an alternative model of progress for non-Western nations navigating imperialism and development.The paradox of progressive politics rejecting the concept of progress - Contemporary progressive movements often critique or abandon progress narratives even as they advocate for social change.The role of expansive conceptions of history - Big history, deep history, and the Anthropocene minimize the role of individual human agency, questioning whether humans remain purposeful historical actors in vast temporal and spatial scales.GuestProfessor Tyson Retz Associate Professor of Intellectual History, University of Stavanger, NorwayTyson Retz is an intellectual historian with a PhD from the University of Melbourne. His research examines how concepts like progress, empathy, and historical consciousness have been constructed and contested across different periods.His first book, Empathy and History: Historical Understanding in Re-enactment, Hermeneutics, and Education (Berghahn Books, 2018), explains the role that empathy played in providing history with a philosophical foundation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Critical of the psychologism of that tradition, the book develops an alternative to 'empathetic understanding' based on Gadamer's hermeneutical reception of Collingwood's logic of question and answer.His second book, Progress and the Scale of History (Cambridge University Press, 2022), appears in the Cambridge Elements series on Historical Theory and Practice. The Element develops five categories of progress from antiquity to the present day, examining how scale shapes our ability to perceive and claim progress.He is also the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles that explore the history of history as a concept and practice. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, an editor of the Bloomsbury History: Theory and Method digital resource, and serves on the board of the History Education Research Journal.Show Notes & Timestamps00:00 Introduction to Progress and Historical Context 01:49 The Concept of Progress: A Paradox 04:22 Scale and Its Impact on Understanding Progress 06:45 Absolute Progress 08:24 Scale 10:00 The Role of Sample Size in Progress Claims 11:02 Bury 12:18 Debates on Ancient Beliefs in Progress 15:11 The First Category: No Progress in Antiquity 16:15 No Progress 17:47 Transition to Absolute Progress 20:28...
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