History, Necessity, Reason

Because Reason is traditionally conceived as entailing Necessity, and History as constituted by new events, the Rational concept of History has typically involved the reconciliation of Necessity and Novelty.  However, two prominent attempts at such a reconciliation have been inadequate.  For, on the one hand, in Teleological Reason, all apparently 'new' moments are entailed in their End, while, on the other, Dialectical Reason fails to explain how Necessity can be other than abstract.  In contrast, an alternative--Experimental Reason--jettisons any commitment to Necessity.  Previously analyzed here, the initial moment of this variety is the interrogative 'What if X?', its pattern can be conceived as an instance of Lucretian Swerve, and the charge that it is 'not Reason' can only be question-begging.  Indeed, even Descartes' axiom is preceded by what Dewey characterizes as a 'quest for certainty'.  So, for example, on the basis of this alternative, the American experiment that begins in the last quarter of the 18th century is exemplarily Rational.