666

In Le monde et ses remèdes [The World and Its Remedies], Rosset characterizes the need for interpreting history in teleological terms, and the evils that take place in history as necessary casualties for the sake of a greater good, as an anti-tragic instinct which is at once a metaphysical and a moral prejudice. Since at least Plato, Western thought is deeply shaped and conditioned by a certain finalism of good. To assume that the course of events is determined by a “final cause” (telos) amounts to assuming that such “final cause” can only be good. Good always prevails and, if it hasn’t prevailed once and for all, it’s because it’s not the end just yet.