The eschaton! (okay, now start over)

October 4, 2010 12:40 AM

In the same vein that "eschatology" is the study of The End, what is the name for the concept of repetitions or renewals?

My google-fu is failing me utterly.

Eschatology is the study of the end of time, mostly used in a theological sense but it can also be applied to more secular concerns.

Along those lines, is there a word for the study or idea that societies/ideas/anything repeats itself through cycles, or that societies/ideas/etc. go through high points and low points?

In particular, I'm thinking here of whether there is a word that would describe the study of how the west went into the "dark ages" and then renewed itself later during the renaissance, and which would imply that this was a cyclical thing that could potentially happen multiple times. Advancement to dark ages to advancement to dark ages to advancement to ... lather, rinse, repeat.

None of the answers in this question seemed to apply. It's possible there isn't a word for this, I suppose, but given the bastard pedigree of English, I strongly doubt that.

posted by barnacles to Writing & Language (12 answers total)

I'd probably call that eternal return — the primary meaning of the phrase is that the universe repeats itself, but part of the concept (as used by various philosophers and writers) is that the universe repeats itself on smaller scales as well.
posted by dreamyshade at 12:58 AM on October 4, 2010

In the wheel of life sense, perhaps Saṃsāra, Karma, or reincarnation, insofar as any of those terms refer to the world itself rather than individual beings.
posted by Ahab at 1:23 AM on October 4, 2010

Or Cyclic History?

Apologies for the poor link, it doesn't seem a particularly widespread view in western historiography.
posted by Ahab at 1:32 AM on October 4, 2010

Sorry for the multiple posts, Social cycle theory looks like it might be on the right track.
posted by Ahab at 1:39 AM on October 4, 2010

The father of "Eternal Return" was Mircea Eliade. He had a lot of interesting things to say about modern linear views of history vs. ancient cyclical ones.
posted by bardic at 2:06 AM on October 4, 2010

Best answer: In scientific cosmology this is called the ekpyrotic scenario. It posits that our universe is a fragile membrane or "brane" drifting through a higher-dimensional space. Billions or trillions of years after the last stars die out, our dead brane will eventually collide with another one, unleashing a universe-kindling Big Bang in each. This cycle repeats ad infinitum. You can read more about it this old Discover article.

As for philosophy, there's apocatastasis, which is a general term for the concept of continuous periodic renewal. The Wikipedia page discusses variations on this theme in several different religions.
posted by Rhaomi at 3:03 AM on October 4, 2010 [6 favorites]

Renaissance.
posted by 3.2.3 at 5:58 AM on October 4, 2010

Also, there's Yeats' gyre approach to history.
posted by kimota at 6:29 AM on October 4, 2010

Try Typology, the Christian doctrine that sees the old testament as prefiguring the new.
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 8:31 AM on October 4, 2010

I went and looked at the apocatastasis wikipedia entry Rhaomi linked to above, and I got to say it was hard to recognize it from the last time I looked at it. My understanding up until thirty seconds ago was apocatastasis == the Origen story with a correlation of .99 and everything else is in that wikipedia article is a very very small print asterisk to the Origen.

As others have said nearly every tradition has some form of a renewal ritual. Many Christians have a formal confession, and for others the words in the Lord's Prayer

"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us"

fills this function. The Jews got Tikkun. It is a very old idea.

I am not convinced you can call this an apoctastasis without some modifiers, but I am definitely going to look some stuff up here. Rhaomi: if you have a better source than the wikipedia page and the references on there I would be very interested to see it.
posted by bukvich at 1:54 PM on October 4, 2010

Best answer: Hi, bukvich,

This is hardly my area of expertise -- I happened upon the term by following the etymological link through to ekpyrosis and on to related concepts. But here's some more info I found after some googling:

"Apokatastasis" is the label, indeed, for the eschatological "restoration" of all beings after a succession of cyclic phases. [cite]


[T]he Stoic theory of apokatastasis ("restoration" or "recurrence"), explicitly mentioned in C.H. VIII.4, XI.2, XII.15; Asclep. 13. The Stoics believed that the currently existing cosmos would eventually disappear in a great conflagration (ekpurosis), only to be renewed identical in every detail and then to continue the cycle of destruction and restoration eternally. Based on eariler theories of astronomical cycles, the idea spread to other Hellenistic philosophies and religions [cite]

Reading through the material again, it looks like the concept of apokatastasis was already existent in Stoic thought -- Origen just gave it his own spin, so to speak.
posted by Rhaomi at 2:28 PM on October 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Well, from all the above the links to ekpyrosis led me to palingenesis, and both of those two concepts together seem closest to the concept I was trying to think of.

Thanks to everyone, you pointed out some fun Wikipedia articles to read!
posted by barnacles at 11:41 AM on November 14, 2010