A HISTORICAL STUDY ON THE REPRESENTATIONS OF REASON IN ENGLISH LITERATURE

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Our research is mainly conducted around the following two problematics.(1) In constructing a "history" as the story of human beings, there have been as bssic structures both the "cyclic" view and the "linear" conception. The former originates in Classical Antiquity and the latter, having its beginning and end, in the Jewish salvation history. In both instances, it is necessary to present a reasonable explanation of those "historical" events and affairs, which are by their nature essentially "accidantal." In the former case, "reason" tries see in the cyclic movements the "repetitive" structure, which she adopts positively as a principle in historical recognition and understanding. At the same time, however, there is a possibility in which the "repetitive" structure, taken negatively, brings about a nihilistic historical outlook. In the latter case, its "linear" structure, which must essentially be regarded as "irrational" because of God's arbitrary intervention, comes to be represented as Hegel's "cunning of reason." This view is based on the historical assumption that the "linear" structure has been "secularized" and transformed into the modern idea of "progress."(2) If the modern representations of reason is given a symbolic expression in such a "conceptual structure" as the Hegelian "absolute spirit, " and at the same time is bound to face some of the important major political issues, then the "historical reason" in "post-modernity" should inevitably be on guard against any form of political power. At the same time, it must try to establish its own priciple or foundation in relation to various forms of media, which has increasingly gained their momentum. This "historical reason" in "post-modernity" has come to be represented something like "difference, " which Derrida detects between "power" and "knowledge" and shows us in an ingenious manner.