Editing Philosophy of history (section)

=== Social evolutionism ===
{{main|Sociocultural evolution|l1=Sociocultural evolutionism}}
{{Off topic|date=November 2019}}
Inspired by the Enlightenment's ideal of progress, social evolutionism became a popular conception in the nineteenth century. [[Auguste Comte]]'s (1798–1857) [[positivism|positivist]] conception of history, which he divided into the theological stage, the metaphysical stage and the positivist stage, brought upon by modern science, was one of the most influential doctrines of progress. The [[Whig interpretation of history]], as it was later called, associated with scholars of the [[Victorian era|Victorian]] and [[Edwardian period|Edwardian]] eras in [[United Kingdom|Britain]], such as [[Henry Maine]] or [[Thomas Macaulay]], gives an example of such influence, by looking at human history as progress from savagery and ignorance toward peace, prosperity, and science. Maine described the direction of progress as "from status to contract," from a world in which a child's whole life is pre-determined by the circumstances of his birth, toward one of mobility and choice.

The publication of [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]]'s ''[[The Origin of Species]]'' in 1859 introduced [[human evolution]]. However, it was quickly transposed from its original biological field to the social field, in [[social Darwinism|social Darwinist]] theories. [[Herbert Spencer]], who coined the term "[[survival of the fittest]]", or [[Lewis Henry Morgan]] in ''[[Ancient Society]]'' (1877) developed evolutionist theories independent from Darwin's works, which would be later interpreted as social Darwinism. These nineteenth-century [[unilineal evolution]] theories claimed that societies start out in a primitive state and gradually become more [[civilisation|civilised]] over time, and equated the culture and technology of Western civilisation with progress.

[[Arthur Gobineau]]'s ''[[An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races]]'' (1853–55) argued that race is ''the'' primary force determining world events, that there are intellectual differences between human [[Race (human classification)|races]], and that civilizations decline and fall when the races are mixed. Gobineau's works had a large popularity in the so-called [[scientific racism]] theories that developed during the [[New Imperialism]] period.

After the [[World War I|first world war]], and even before [[Herbert Butterfield]] (1900–1979) harshly criticized it, the Whig interpretation had gone out of style. The bloodletting of that conflict had indicted the whole notion of linear progress. [[Paul Valéry]] famously said: "We civilizations now know ourselves mortal."

However, the notion itself didn't completely disappear. ''[[The End of History and the Last Man]]'' (1992) by [[Francis Fukuyama]] proposed a similar notion of progress, positing that the worldwide adoption of [[liberal democracy|liberal democracies]] as the single accredited political system and even modality of human consciousness would represent the "[[End of History]]". Fukuyama's work stems from a [[Alexandre Kojève|Kojevian]] reading of Hegel's ''[[Phenomenology of Spirit]]'' (1807).

Unlike [[Maurice Godelier]] who interprets history as a process of transformation, [[Tim Ingold]] suggests that history is a movement of [[autopoiesis]].<ref>Ingold, T. On the Distinction between Evolution and History. Social Evolution & History,. Vol. 1, num. 1. 2002. Pp. 5-24. P. 9, [http://www.socionauki.ru/journal/articles/130380/ socionauki.ru]</ref>

A key component to making sense of all of this is to simply recognize that all these issues in social evolution merely serve to support the suggestion that how one considers the nature of history will impact the interpretation and conclusions drawn about history. The critical under-explored question is less about history as content and more about history as process.

In 2011 [[Steven Pinker]] wrote a history of violence and humanity from an evolutionary perspective in which he shows that violence has declined statistically over time.<ref>" The better angels of our nature, a history of violence and humanity ", by [[Steven Pinker]], published 2012 by Penguin books {{ISBN|978-0-141-03464-5}}</ref>{{Importance inline|date=November 2019}}