Fukuyama's "End of History"-Thesis (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Philosophy - Philosophy of the present, grade: -, University of Ibadan, course: History of Philosophy, language: English, abstract: Perhaps the most apt way to start is to hear Francis Fukuyama in his own words regarding the objective of his journey into the end of history thesis. With that, we would have been immediately, at least considerably, launched into the entire discourse and have a clear sense of direction altogether.

Fukuyama opens up the whole project of his thesis with a view not only to propagating the tenets of an ideology but also, and more fundamentally too, to order and put a seal to the views of his predecessors -Hegel and Marx -with whom he shares considerable degree of similar philosophical viewpoint vis-à-vis the journey of history and of the stages of evolution of human consciousness. Both Hegel and Marx had laid the foundation upon which Fukuyama would later build his theory of history and goal of its journey, or say development of human consciousness.

From this background, this paper sets to do an expose of Fukuyama's philosophical standpoint on the concept of history, using as background Marxist dialectical master stroke as well as Hegel's idealist 'grundnorm,' and do a critique of the entire thesis. The focus essentially here is to interrogate the multifarious philosophical implications of Fukuyama's standpoint in relation to his declaration of the 'end of history.'