Palingenesis (/ˌpælɪnˈdʒɛnəsɪs/; alsopalingenesia) fromGreek: παλιγγενεσία. is a concept ofrebirth or re-creation, used in various contexts inphilosophy,theology,politics, andbiology. Its meaning stems fromGreekpalin, meaning 'again', andgenesis, meaning 'birth'.
In biology, it is another word forrecapitulation – the largely discredited hypothesis that the development of an advanced individual organism mirrors the development of entire, more primitive species. Inpolitical theory, it is a central component ofRoger Griffin's analysis offascism as a fundamentally modernist ideology.[1] In theology, the word may refer toreincarnation or to Christian spiritual rebirth.
The wordpalingenesis or ratherpalingenesia (Ancient Greek:παλιγγενεσία) may be traced back to theStoics,[2][3][4][5] who used the term for the continual re-creation of theuniverse. Similarly,Philo designatedNoah and his sons as leaders of a renovation or rebirth of the earth,Plutarch spoke of thetransmigration of souls, andCicero focused on his own return from exile.
In theGospel of Matthew (19:28),[6]Jesus is quoted in Greek (likelyAramaic in the original) using the word "παλιγγενεσία" (palingenesia) to describe theLast Judgment foreshadowing the event of the regeneration of a new world.[7]
In philosophy, it denotes in its broadest sense the theory (of thePythagoreans) that the human soul does not die with the body but is born again in newincarnations. It is thus the equivalent ofmetempsychosis. The term has a narrower and more specific use in the system ofArthur Schopenhauer, who applied it to his doctrine that the will does not die but manifests itself afresh in new individuals. He thus modified the original metempsychosis doctrine which maintains thereincarnation of the particular soul.
Robert Burton, inThe Anatomy of Melancholy (1628), writes, "The Pythagoreans defend metempsychosis and palingenesia, that souls go from one body to another."
InAntiquities of the Jews (11.3.9),Josephus used the termpalingenesis for the national restoration of theJews in their homeland after theBabylonian exile. The term is commonly used inModern Greek to refer to the rebirth of the Greek nation after theGreek Revolution.Thomas Carlyle used it inSartor Resartus (1833–34), referring to the "Newbirth of Society", a stage in Carlyle'scyclical view of history as the "burning of a World-Phoenix".[8]
The British political theoristRoger Griffin has coined the termpalingenetic ultranationalism as a core tenet offascism, stressing the notion of fascism as an ideology of rebirth of astate orempire in the image of that which came before it – its ancestral political underpinnings. Examples of this areFascist Italy andNazi Germany. UnderBenito Mussolini, Italy purported to establish an empire as the second incarnation of theRoman Empire, whileAdolf Hitler's regime purported itself to be the third palingenetic incarnation of the German "Reich" – beginning first with theHoly Roman Empire ("First Reich"), followed by Bismarck'sGerman Empire ("Second Reich") and then Nazi Germany ("Third Reich").
Moreover, Griffin's work on palingenesis in fascism analysed the pre-warfin de siècle Western society. In doing so he built onFrank Kermode's workThe Sense of an Ending which sought to understand the belief in the death of society at the end of the century.[9]
Chilean dictatorAugusto Pinochet expressed hispost-coupproject in government as a national rebirth inspired inDiego Portales, a figure of the early republic:[10]
...[democracy] will be born again purified from the vices and bad habits that ended up destroying our institutions ... we are inspired in the Portalian spirit which has fused together the nation ...
In modern biology (e.g.,Ernst Haeckel andFritz Müller),palingenesis has been used for the exact reproduction of ancestral features by inheritance, as opposed tokenogenesis, in which the inherited characteristics are modified by environment.
It was also applied to the quite different process supposed byKarl Beurlen to be the mechanism for hisorthogenetic theory of evolution.[11]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Palingenesis".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.