Today in Philosophy of History
By Nick Nielsen
Today in Philosophy of HistoryNov 27, 2024
Danilevsky on the National Character of Cultural-Historical Types
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Danilevsky on the National Character of Cultural-Historical Types
Thursday 28 November 2024 is the 202nd anniversary of the birth of Nikolay Yakovlevich Danilevsky (Никола́й Я́ковлевич Даниле́вский—his name is transliterated from the Cyrillic script in various ways; 28 November 1822 – 07 November 1885), who was born in the village of Oberets on this date in 1822.
Danilevsky is usually identified as a Slavophile and a Pan-Slavic philosopher, with the implication that his work is of little relevance to Westerners, but Danilevsky’s cultural-historical types were an important anticipation of Spengler, and Danilevsky’s distinctive conception of science can be understood as a mechanism that would drive the incommensurability that Spengler attributed to different civilizations.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
My paper cited in this episode: https://keplerspaceinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/JSP-Fall-2023-6_Nielsen-Final.pdf “The Develes Engynnes: Technological Textures of Life on Earth and in Space”
#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory # NikolayDanilevsky #Pan-Slavism #Slavophile #Russia #PetrashevskyCircle #Westernization #EugeneWigner
Beard on Historical Relativism and the Objectivity Question
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Beard on Historical Relativism and the Objectivity Question
Wednesday 27 November 2024 is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Charles A. Beard (27 November 1874 – 01 September1948), who was born in Knightstown, Indiana, on this date in 1874.
Beard is often presented as one of the great figures of the Progressive Era in American history, and his works are taken to embody progressivism. He is also remembered, like Carl Becker, for his relativism, but exactly what he meant by historical relativism is not always what others meant by the same term.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #CharlesBeard #relativism #HistoricalRelativism #Ranke #MauriceMandlebaum #objectivity
Buckle as the Father of Scientific History
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Buckle as the Father of Scientific History
Sunday 24 November 2024 is the 197th anniversary of the birth of Henry Thomas Buckle (24 November 1821 – 29 May 1862), who was born in London on this date in 1821. Buckle died at only forty years of age in Damascus, Syria.
Buckle is sometimes called the “Father of Scientific History,” and he formulated a method for scientific history that he presented in his History of Civilization in England, a large work left unfinished upon his early death. I take Buckle as a point of departure for considering the scientific status of history.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #HenryThomasBuckle #ScientificHistory #incompleteness #abstraction #science #taxonomy #paradox #Stuart-Glennie
Dilthey and Our Lived Experience of the Past
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Dilthey and Our Lived Experience of the Past
Tuesday 19 November 2024 is the 191st anniversary of the birth of Wilhelm Dilthey (19 November 1833 – 01 October 1911), who was born in Wiesbaden-Biebrich on this date in 1833.
Dilthey has been highly influential in the philosophy of history, but mostly as a critic. His thought it difficult to pigeonhole. Robert C. Scharff has called Dilthey’s work, “non-analytical, unspeculative philosophy of History,” which distances him from the familiar distinction between analytical and speculative philosophies of history. In this episode I focus on Dilthey’s conception of lived experience in relation to time and history.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #WiilhelmDilthey #LivedExperience #HumanSciences #time #LivedTime #EdmundHusserl #KnowledgeArgument #Mary'sRoom
Zinsser’s Naturalistic History of Infectious Disease
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Zinsser’s Naturalistic History of Infectious Disease
Sunday 17 November 2024 is the 146th anniversary of the birth of Hans Zinsser (17 November 1878 – 04 September 1940), who was born in New York City on this date in 1878.
Zinsser is the author of Rats, Lice and History, which is an account of history in terms of infectious disease—specially, typhus, which he wrote about as though it were an individual, and as if he were writing a biography—the biography of a disease. In the way of writing a biography of typhus, Zinsser presented a big picture account of human history that is thoroughly naturalistic.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #HansZinsser #disease #typhus #naturalism #Lovecraft #Freud #awe
Saint Augustine on the Two Cities
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Saint Augustine on the Two Cities
Wednesday 13 November 2024 is the 1,670th anniversary of the birth of Saint Augustine (13 November 354 - 28 August 430), who areas born Aurelius Augustinus in Thagnaste, in the province of Numidia, then part of the Roman Empire, now part of Algeria, on this date in 354 AD.
Saint Augustine has been one of the most influential figures in Western Christendom, named a father and a doctor of the church, and whose pervasive influence can be seen in philosophy of theology. But while his City of God has been read for more than a thousand years, and the providential conception of history he propounded continues to be influential, his philosophy of history remains underappreciated to this day.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #AureliusAugustinus #SaintAugusine #CityofGod #CivitasDei #providentialism #time #eternity #linearty #CyclicalHistory
The Destruction of the Indies according to de las Casas
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: The Destruction of the Indies according to de las Casas
Monday 11 November 2024 is the 540th birthday of Bartolomé de las Casas (11 November 1484 – 18 July 1566), who was born in Seville on this date in 1484.
Bartolomé de las Casas arrived at Hispaniola as a young man, became a Dominican friar, and thereafter was a tireless advocate of the native peoples of the Americas, writing a scathing account of the Spanish in the New World in his A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. The issues he raised have only become more prominent since his time.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory # BartolomédelasCasas #Indies #NewWorld #indigenous #ValladolidDebate #SublimusDei #BlackLegend
Schiller’s Romantic Rational Reconstruction of History
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Schiller’s Romantic Rational Reconstruction of History
Sunday 10 November 2024 is the 265th anniversary of the birth of Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller (10 November 1759 – 09 May 1805), who was born in Marbach am Neckar, in the Duchy of Württemberg, on this date in 1759.
We could call Schiller a “renaissance man” because of his many accomplishments—poet, playwright, historian, and philosopher—but really we should call him an “Enlightenment man” or “romantic man,” because he was a man of his age, but he’s also a “universal man” in the sense sometimes attributed to the renaissance man, and as a universal man he gave a famous lecture on universal history.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #FriedrichSchiller #Enlightenment #romanticism #UniversalHistory #trauerspiel #drama
Quigley on the Evolution of Civilizations
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Quigley on the Evolution of Civilizations
Saturday 09 November 2024 is the 114th anniversary of the birth of Carroll Quigley (09 November 1910 – 03 January 1977), who was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on this date in 1910.
An influential teacher of many influential students, Quigley’s distinctive work on history and civilization build on the earlier work of Toynbee, but Quigley is explicitly and sharply critical of Toynbee, and explains how the framework he formulated is an improvement that offers a fruitful perspective for historical analysis and the study of civilization.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #CarrollQuigley #civilization #TragedyandHope #ColdWar #Toynbee #institutionalization
McNeill’s World History of Disease
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: McNeill’s World History of Disease
Thursday 31 October 2024 is the 107th anniversary of the birth of William Hardy McNeill (31 October 1917 – 08 July 2016), who was born in Vancouver, BC, on this date in 1917.
McNeill’s influential book Plagues and Peoples is both a specialist history of the role of infectious diseases in human history and a grand narrative of the whole of human history from prehistory to the present. I place McNeill’s work in the tradition of naturalistic history that extends from Montesquieu through Hans Zinsser and Ellsworth Huntington to Jared Diamond.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #McNeill #naturalism #disease #macroparasites #Toynbee #PlagueandPeoples #HerbertEugeneBolton #JaredDiamond #GeographicalDeterminism #WorldHistory #PlanetaryHistory
Romein and the Logical Geography of Theoretical History
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Romein and the Logical Geography of Theoretical History
Wednesday 30 October 2024 is the 131st anniversary of the birth of Jan Marius Romein (30 October 1893 – 16 July 1962), who was born in Rotterdam on this date in 1893.
Romein proposed the possibility of a theoretical history, influenced, at least obliquely, by his Marxism, as we can glimpse Marx’s cultural evolutionism at work though the fabric of Romein’s theoretical history. Few historians have taken up the call to develop a theoretical history as Romein imagined it, but the idea is an intriguing one that still possesses possibilities.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #JanRomein #TheoreticalHistory #LogicalGeography #Marxism #PieterGeyl #ElmanService #DugaldStewart
Fukuyama on the End of History and Other Dystopias
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Fukuyama on the End of History and Other Dystopias
Sunday 27 October 2024 is the 72nd birthday of Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama (27 October 1952 - present), who was born in Chicago on this date in 1952.
Fukuyama introduced the idea of the “end of history,” proposed by Hegel and further developed in twentieth century French thought, into American political science, and in doing do kicked up a major kerfuffle. In the 1990s, everyone wanted to talk about the end of history until Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations came out, seemingly presenting a geopolitical alternative to history’s end.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #FrancisFukuyama #EndofHistory #ColdWar #HumanNature #dystopia
Kołakowski from Spiritualized Marxism to Disappointed Utopianism
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Kołakowski from Spiritualized Marxism to Disappointed Utopianism
Wednesday 23 October 2024 is the 97th anniversary of the birth of Leszek Kołakowski (23 October 1927 – 17 July 2009), who was born in Radom, Poland, on this day in 1927.
Kołakowski was an internal critic of Marxism for much of his life, and there is a sense in which Kołakowski never gave up his youthful Marxism, and Marxist themes persist in his thought throughout his work, though they weaken over time. Kołakowski’s thought seems to culminate in a disappointed utopianism in which historical knowledge possesses no utility but ultimately furnishes us with a sense of identity.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory # LeszekKołakowski #Marxism #communism #Poland #PolishPhilosophy #positivism #phenomenology #legitimation #EPThompson
J. B. Bury on Progress as Providential Naturalism
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: J. B. Bury on Progress as Providential Naturalism
Wednesday 16 October 2024 is the 163rd anniversary of the birth of John Bagnell Bury, better known to posterity as J. B. Bury (16 October 1861 – 01 June 1927), who was born in Clontibret, County Monaghan, Ireland, on this date in 1861.
Bury suggests that progress plays a role in modern thought comparable to the role of divine providence traditional thought, and this suggests the paradoxical idea of providential naturalism that is constructed on the model of providentialism, but with progress in place of providence.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #J.B.Bury #progress #ProvidentialNaturalism
Nietzsche’s Mythological Vision of History
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Nietzsche’s Mythological Vision of History
Tuesday 15 October 2024 is the 180th anniversary of the birth of Friedrich Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900), who was born in Röcken, in Saxony, then part of Prussia, on this day in 1844.
Nietzsche’s influence today equally extends to philosophy and popular culture, but in his time he was isolated, alone, and his books had few readers. His posthumous fame has made him not only a figure in history, but a figure of history, he himself embodying the very monumental history he placed alongside antiquarian and critical history. His critical history of historiography is a non-philosophy of history, but the mythology he constructed is a philosophically-informed vision of history.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #Nietzsche #Wagner #mythology #EternalRecurrence
Arendt on Ancient and Modern Concepts of History
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Arendt on Ancient and Modern Concepts of History
Monday 14 October 2024 is the 118th anniversary of the birth of Hannah Arendt (14 October 1906 – 04 December 1975), who was born in Linden, a borough of Hanover, then part of Prussia, on this date in 1906.
In her essay “The Concept of History: Ancient and Modern,” included in Between Past and Future, Arendt offered a subtle and detailed account of history and how the concept of history has changed from the ancient world to today. The modern concept of history, derived from the world-alienation of modern science, is shown to lay the ground for the emergence of mass man in mass society, described in detail in Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #HannahArendt #totalitarianism #world-alienation #secularization #ErsatzReligion #functionalization
Comparative Literatures of the Apocalypse
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Comparative Literatures of the Apocalypse
How will our descendants view our attempts to understand the future world they inhabit? I take up this question from the admittedly eccentric perspective of apocalyptic literature read by the survivors of an actual apocalypse.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #books #collapse #apocalypse #ThoughtExpeeriments
From Augustine to Machiavelli
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: From Augustine to Machiavelli
A brief discussion of another disconnect in the philosophy of history—an ellipsis in the philosophy of history that arises from different conceptions of history in antiquity, the Middle Ages, and in the modern world—and how we might overcome the disconnects and fill the ellipses.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
Text post: https://geopolicraticus.substack.com/p/from-augustine-to-machiavelli
#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #metaphysics #time #supervenience #emergentism #medieval #Augustine #Machiavelli #commentary #counterfactual #ThoughtExperiment
Butterfield and the Whig Interpretation of History
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Butterfield and the Whig Interpretation of History
Monday 07 October 2024 is the 124th anniversary of the birth of Herbert Butterfield (07 October 1900 – 20 July 1979), who was born in Oxenhope, England, on this date in 1900.
Butterfield’s book The Whig Interpretation of History changed the way that historians viewed their own profession, since no one wanted to be thought guilty of writing Whiggish history. But Butterfield had greater demands yet upon the historian, who is to embody technical precision at the same time as achieving imaginative sympathy, all without rendering moral judgment. That is a tall order.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #HerbertButterfield #WhiggishHistory #progress #Macaulay #historicism #objectivity
Hubble and the VAR! Plate
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Hubble and the VAR! Plate
On Saturday 06 October 1923, 101 years ago today, the astronomer Edwin Hubble dated a photographic plate that showed a Cepheid variable star in Andromeda. This marked a major turning point in the reconstruction of cosmology and cosmological history, since it was a scientific demonstration of the universe consisting of many galaxies—known at the time as the island universe hypothesis—later shown by Hubble to be many galaxies expanding. With this discovery, the universe became a different place from what we have previously believed it to be.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #Hubble #VAR! #cosmology #DeepTime
Guizot on Progress as the Measure of Civilization
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Guizot on Progress as the Measure of Civilization
Friday 04 October 2024 is the 237th anniversary of the birth of François Pierre Guillaume Guizot (04 October 1787 – 12 September 1874), who was born in Nîmes, France, on this date in 1787, and who went on to hold many of the highest political offices in France.
Guizot led a long and eventful life that involved both extensive literary work and engagement with the political life of his time. His histories of European civilization and French civilization are distinctive in their transmutation of the Enlightenment theme of progress, which Guizot re-interprets in the light of nineteenth century experience.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #Guizot # FrançoisGuizot #civilization #progress #Protestantism #Enlightenment
Bossuet on Particular Providence and Nominalism
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Bossuet on Particular Providence and Nominalism
Friday 27 September 2024 is the 397th anniversary of the birth of Jacques-Bénigne Lignel Bossuet (27 September 1627 – 12 April 1704), who was born in Dijon on this date in 1627, and who came to be known as the Eagle of Meaux, as his diocese was Meaux.
Providential philosophy of history constitutes one of the fundamental divisions of Western philosophy of history, originating with St. Augustine, who was himself the source and origin of philosophy of history in the Western tradition. Bossuet represents a distinctive permutation among providential philosophies of history, emphasizing particular providence over general providence and coupled with universal history and a hint of nominalism.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #Bossuet # #providentialism #DivineProvidence #universalism #UniversalHistory #nominalism #ParticularProvidence
Hans Reichenbach on the Direction of Time
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Hans Reichenbach on the Direction of Time
Thursday 26 September 2024 is the 133rd anniversary of the birth of Hans Reichenbach (26 September 1891 – 09 April 1953), who was born in Hamburg on this date in 1891.
Reichenbach is remembered as a philosopher of science and no one links him to philosophy of history, but he wrote extensively about time, and for any philosophy of history that takes time seriously, there are implications for the philosophy of history. Reichenbach’s conception of time, as a thorough-going scientific account based on the fundamental physics of thermodynamics, provides a rigorous basis for scientific history.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
Text post: https://geopolicraticus.substack.com/p/hans-reichenbach-and-the-direction
#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #HansReichenbach #time #naturalism #LogicalEmpiricism #CausalTheory #thermodynamics #directionality
Condorcet and the Progress of the Human Mind
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Condorcet and the Progress of the Human Mind
Tuesday 17 September 2024 is the 281st anniversary of the birth of Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, also known as the Marquis of Condorcet, and usually known to posterity simply as Condorcet. He was born in Ribemont in Picardy, on this date in 1743.
Condorcet was a true believer in the Enlightenment creed of the indefinite perfectibility of man, and he wrote a history of humanity to illustrate this progress in the past and to predict continued progress in the future.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #Condorcet #Enlightenment #perfectibility #progress #repugnantconclusion #BishopButler
Bruce Mazlish and the Claims of Psychohistory
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Bruce Mazlish and the Claims of Psychohistory
It is the 101st anniversary of the birth of Bruce Mazlish (15 September 1923 – 27 November 2016), who was born in Brooklyn on this date in 1923.
Mazlish was an important figure in the development of psychohistory, the attempt to bring the insights of psychology and the social sciences to bear on history. But can the insights of psychology and psychotherapy offer any clarification for history, or do they only threaten to deepen the confusion?
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #BruceMazlish #psychodynamic #psychotherapy #psychohistory #psychologism
Historical Exemplarism in Short-Lived Empires and Long-Lived Influence
ADDENDUM ON NAPOLEON: Historical Exemplarism in Short-Lived Empires and Long-Lived Influence
Following up on my episode on Napoleon, in which I mentioned Johan Huizinga on historical ideals, I revisit these historical ideals and consider them in the light of moral exemplarism. Why have historical exemplars been drawn from the long-lived influence of short-lived empires and the singular men who presided over them? Let us re-imagine figures like Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, and Napoleon as historical exemplars who give focus to the role of virtue ethics in history.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #AlexandertheGreat #Charlemagne #Napoleon #JohanHuizinga #HistoricalIdeals #exemplars #exemplarism #HistoricalExemplarism #NineWorthies
Carl Becker and the Problem of Historical Facts
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Carl Becker and the Problem of Historical Facts
It is the 151st anniversary of the birth of Carl Becker (07 September 1873 – 10 April 1945), who was born in Waterloo, Iowa, on this date in 1873.
Becker was among the most noteworthy of American historians, and he reflected on his historical practice in several works, especially “What Are Historical Facts?” and “Everyman His Own Historian.” The problem of historical facts is one we have encountered before and will encounter again, so I take up Becker on historical facts and how interpretations of facts are shaped by worldviews.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #CarlBecker #facts #HistoricalFacts #everyman #worldviews #BertrandRussell #FrankRamsey #humanism
McTaggart on the A-Series, the B-Series, and the C-Series
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: McTaggart on the A-Series, the B-Series, and the C-Series
It is the 158th anniversary of the birth of John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart (03 September 1866 to 18 January 1925), better known to posterity as J. M. E. McTaggart, was born in London on this date in 1866. It is also the 103rd anniversary of the birth of Louis O. Mink (03 September 1921 – 19 January 1983), who was born in Ada, Ohio, on this date in 1921.
McTaggart denied the reality of time, so it would seem paradoxical to attribute to him a philosophy of history, but Mink, who was a philosopher of history, wrote a paper on McTaggart that was somewhat sympathetic, implying that a philosopher of history can appreciate the problems with time identified by McTaggart. To what extent are philosophies of history based on conceptions of time, and to what extent ought they to be so based?
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #McTaggart #time #idealism #LouisOMink #PersonalIdealism #BritishIdealism #A-series #B-series #C-series #supervenience #naturalism
The Second World War Begins
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: The Second World War Begins
On Friday, 01 September 1939, eighty-five years ago today, Germany invaded Poland, transforming a dangerous and ambiguous military and political situation into a “hot” war. It is this date that is most frequently employed for the beginning of the Second World War. What was the nature of the war? What kind of war was it? This deceptive simple question is difficult to answer.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #WWII #WorldWarTwo #SecondWorldWar #taxonomy #Germany #Poland
Hegel on the Journey of Spirit to Self-Understanding
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Hegel on the Journey of Spirit to Self-Understanding
Tuesday 27 August 2024 is the 254th anniversary of the birth of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831), who was born in Stuttgart on this date in 1770.
It is unlikely that anyone would call Hegel’s philosophy of history an Enlightenment philosophy of history, but there is a sense in which Hegel is the culmination of an especially fertile period in the philosophy of history that preceded him. Hegel transcended these Enlightenment philosophies of history in a supremely abstract way of understanding history and the developments it unfolds.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #Hegel #GWFHegel #spirit #Napoleon #WalterKaufmann #WilliamBarrett #SidneyHook #hero
Herder’s Reflections on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Herder’s Reflections on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind
Sunday 25 August 2024 is the 280th anniversary of the birth of Johann Gottfried von Herder (25 August 1744 – 18 December 1803), who was born at Mohrungen, then part of Prussia and now part of Poland, just south of Königsberg, now Kaliningrad (where Kant was a professor), on this day in 1744.
Herder was a student of Kant, a protégé of Hamann, and an independent thinker who presented a counter-Enlightenment interpretation of human history, but still saw a future of progress for humanity.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #JGHerder #Enlightenment #Lovejoy #Kant #progress #counter-Enlightenment #plenitude #PrincipleofPlenitude #naturalism
Fernand Braudel and the Structures of Historical Time
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Fernand Braudel and the Structures of Historical Time
Saturday 24 August 2024 is the 122nd anniversary of the birth of Fernand Braudel (24 August 1902 – 27 November 1985), who was born in Luméville-en-Ornois, a provincial village in Lorraine, on this date in 1902.
Braudel is thought of as the major figure of the second generation of the Annales school of history, which was founded by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre. Braudel distinguished among three levels of historical time—the event, the conjuncture, and the longue durée—and focused his historical efforts on explicating how the longue durée shapes human history.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #FernandBraudel #Annales #LongueDurée #conjuncture #OlafStapledon #BertrandRussell #Stapledonian
Max Scheler on Philosophical Anthropology and History
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Max Scheler on Philosophical Anthropology and History
Thursday 22 August 2024 is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Max Ferdinand Scheler (22 August 1874 – 19 May 1928), who was born in Munich on this date in 1874.
Scheler argued that a philosophical anthropology is a necessary preliminary for a philosophy of history because a conception of history follows from a conception of man. He outlined five conceptions of man and their associated conceptions of history, but didn’t live long enough to give a definitive statement of his own views, which were still developing at the time of his death.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #MaxScheler #phenomenology #PhilosophicalAnthropology #HenriPirenne #personalism #anti-naturalism #axiology
Jules Michelet and the Promise of Emancipatory History
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Jules Michelet and the Promise of Emancipatory History
Wednesday 21 August 2024 is the 226th anniversary of the birth of Jules Michelet (21 August 1798 – 09 February 1874), who was born in Paris on this date in 1798.
Michelet collected in his person many influences from the period that preceded him, especially in regard to the rediscovery of Vico, his life was decisively shaped by the Napoleonic empire, and he went to influence the period that followed him. Michelet, in comprehending many contemporary influences, focused in himself many of the most prominent and important themes of historical thought of his time, and his historical thought, in turn, teeming as it was with all these influences, spread out after him in succeeding generations and shaped what history become in the twentieth century.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #JulesMichelet #progress #liberation #emancipation #HaydayWhite #Vico #romanticism #MarcBloch #LongueDurée #holism
Geoffrey Elton and Thesis-Dominated History
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Geoffrey Elton and Thesis-Dominated History
Saturday 17 August 2024 is the 103rd anniversary of the birth of Geoffrey Elton (born Gottfried Rudolf Otto Ehrenberg; 17 August 1921 – 04 December 1994), who was born in Tübingen, Germany, on this day in 1921.
Elton was an historian of Tudor England who also wrote on historiography and touched on philosophy of history at many points. He is remembered as one of the parties of the Carr-Elton debate on historiography, along with Ted Carr. Elton especially criticized what he called thesis-dominated history, which he compared unfavorably to thesis-free or empirical history.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #GeoffreyElton #thesis-free #thesis-dominated #historiography #positivism
Napoleon and Revolutionary Imperialism
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Napoleon and Revolutionary Imperialism
Thursday 15 August 2024 is the 255th anniversary of the birth of Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 05 May 1821), who was born in the city of Ajaccio on the island of Corsica on this date in 1769.
Napoleon was one of the most consequential men of Western history. As such, he has served as a symbol and as an historical ideal, in Huizinga’s sense. But Napoleon meant many things to many men, so his use as a symbol is always ambiguous, and the many meanings that have been associated with the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire have never converged on a single vision of history.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #Napoleon #Bonapartism #Jacobinism #HistorialIdeals #empire #revolution #FrenchRevolution #Clausewitz #Hegel
Carl Stephenson and the Second Urbanization of Europe
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Carl Stephenson and the Second Urbanization of Europe
Saturday 10 August 2024 is the 138th anniversary of the birth of Carl Stephenson (10 August 1886 – 03 October 1954), who was born at Fayette, Iowa, on this date in 1886 (or 1888—at least one source gives the year of his birth as 1888 rather than 1886).
Stephenson was an American medievalist who wrote a classic work, Medieval Feudalism (1942), and who studied the origins of urbanization in the Middle Ages. A short, concise book on a foundational concept can go a long way toward clarification, and Stephenson’s Medieval Feudalism provided some of this clarification, illuminating medieval civilization entire in doing so.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #CarlStephenson #urbanization #MiddleAges #MedievalEurope #SecondUrbanization #TheoreticalHistory
The Advent of the Nuclear Age
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: The Advent of the Nuclear Age
The Nuclear Age began suddenly, spectacularly, and catastrophically by the airburst of the Little Boy atomic bomb over Hiroshima, on Monday 06 August 1945, 79 years ago today. Three days later, on Thursday 09 August 1945, the Fat Man atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. What did these bombs inaugurate, and what did we learn about ourselves and our place in history as a result?
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #Hiroshima #Nagasaki #NuclearWar #Bronowski #Nietzsche #WalterBenjamin #Jetztzeit #periodization #KarlJaspers #NuclearAge #AtomicAge
Walter Pater and an Aesthetic Philosophy of History
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Walter Pater and an Aesthetic Philosophy of History
Sunday 04 August 2024 is the 185th anniversary of the birth of Walter Horatio Pater (04 August 1839 – 30 July 1894), who was born in London’s East End on this date in 1839.
Pater’s book on the renaissance, first published in 1873 as Studies in the History of the Renaissance, and revised in 1877 as The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry, culminated in a passionate philosophy of life based on the ideals of the renaissance, as Pater understood them from his Victorian perspective: “To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.” But can this philosophy of life be translated into a philosophy of history?
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #WalterPater #renaissance #aestheticism #aestheticmovement #historicism #Victorianism
Karl Popper on Historicism and Indeterminism
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Karl Popper on Historicism and Determinism
Sunday 28 July 2024 is the 122nd anniversary of the birth of Karl Popper (28 July 1902 - 17 September 1994), who was born in Vienna on this date in 1902.
Popper’s philosophy of history, expressed his The Open Society and Its Enemies in 1945 and The Poverty of Historicisim in 1957, can be understood as an application of his conception of knowledge, worked out in his philosophy of science, to history and the social sciences, which he equates as both being illicitly involved in a project of attempting to make historical predictions. Denying the possibility of prediction in history, Popper argued again historical determinism and inevitability.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory # KarlPopper #historicism #prediction #indeterminism #determinism #PhilosophyofScience
The Bolton Thesis and Hemispherical History
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: The Bolton Thesis and Hemispherical History
Saturday 20 July 2024 is the 154th anniversary of the birth of Herbert Eugene Bolton (20 July 1870 – 30 January 1953), who was born on a farm in rural Wisconsin on this date in 1870.
Bolton was an American historian whose engagement with Spanish colonial history in the Spanish-American borderlands led to his formulation of the Bolton Thesis, that American history needs to be hemispherical history. Bolton trained hundreds of historians who came to be known collectively as the “Bolton School.”
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #HerbertEugeneBolton #BoltonThesis #BoltonTheory #HemisphericalHistory #frontier #borderlands
Thomas Kuhn on the Structure of Scientific Revolutions
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Thomas Kuhn on the Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Thursday 18 July 2024 is the 102nd anniversary of the birth of Thomas Kuhn (18 July 1922 – 17 June 1996), who was born in Cincinnati on this date in 1922.
Kuhn wrote an extraordinarily influential book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, first published in 1962, which thereafter changed the way that history and philosophy of science were pursued. Strangely enough, this book appeared in a series of monographs, The International encyclopedia of Unified Science, which was a logical empiricist undertaking, which today seems as dated as Kuhn’s work seems timely. It is ironically appropriate that Kuhn’s work on paradigm shifts appeared within an organ intended to contribute to a paradigm that Kuhn would undermine.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #ThomasKuhn #science #HistoryofScience #Paradigm #KuhnCycle
Walter Benjamin on the Concept of History
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Walter Benjamin on the Concept of History
Monday 15 July 2024 is the 132nd anniversary of the Birth of Walter Benjamin (15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940), who was born in Berlin on this date in 1892.
Benjamin is primarily known to philosophy of history through a short essay which was the last he wrote before he killed himself, “On the Concept of History,” though some of his earlier works also betray an interest in history. As a Marxist, Benjamin was explicit in his historical materialism, though he diverges from Marx on several important points. Even as he took over Bloch’s interest in messianism, his work prefigured much that was to come in literary theory.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #WalterBenjamin #Marxism #HistoricalMaterialism #Jetztzeit #now-time #revolution
Hans Blumenberg and the Legitimacy of the Modern Age
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Hans Blumenberg and the Legitimacy of the Modern Age
Saturday 13 July 2024 is the 104th anniversary of the birth of Hans Blumenberg (13 July 1920 – 28 March 1996), who was born in Lübeck on this date in 1920.
Blumenberg’s interest in modernity touched off a debate with Karl Löwith about the legitimacy not only of philosophy of history as a discipline, but of the modern age itself. Blumenberg approached modernity by several pathways, including Petrarch’s ascent of Mount Ventoux, the origins of Copernicanism, and Löwith’s use of the idea of secularization.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #HansBlumenberg #modernity #Löwith #secularization
Ernst Bloch and the Principle of Hope
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Ernst Bloch and the Principle of Hope
Monday 08 July 2024 is the 139th anniversary of the birth of Ernst Bloch (08 July 1885 – 04 August 1977), who was born in Ludwigshafen on this date in 1885.
Bloch wrote in a prophetic and paradoxical voice that wouldn’t work well for a lot of philosophers, but it allowed Bloch to synthesize Marxism, messianism, theology, and eschatology. Bloch’s major work, The Principle of Hope, is essentially about utopias, surveying utopias in all of their forms—medical utopias, social utopias, technological utopias, architectural utopias, and geographical utopias, and the themes of his thought all cluster around the utopian ideal—hope, striving toward and into the future, possibility, and potentiality.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #ErnstBloch #Marxism #hope #utopia #not-yet
Marc Bloch and the Annales School of History
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Marc Bloch and the Annales School of History
Saturday 06 July 2024 is the 138th anniversary of the birth of Marc Bloch (06 July 1886 – 16 June 1944), who was born on this date in Lyon in 1886. Bloch was shot by the Gestapo on 16 June 1944 because of his involvement in the French resistance.
Bloch was a founder of the Annales school of history, along with Lucien Febvre and Fernand Braudel. The Annales school emphasized the longue durée as the structure of history, and Bloch adopted this perspective in his classic work Feudal Society.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #MarcBloch #longuedurée #Annales #Braudel
The Fourth of July
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: The Fourth of July
On Thursday 04 July 1776—248 years ago today—the Continental Congress of the not-yet-existing United States approved the Declaration of Independence, formalizing the armed struggle between American colonists and the British Empire, and precipitating the American Revolutionary War. It took years to win the war, and years more to converge on a constitution that the former colonies could accept. Today we reflect on the place of this conflict within the history of ideas.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #IndependenceDay #FourthofJuly #4thofJuly #revolution #AmericanRevolution #RevolutionaryWar
Haskell Fain on Transplanting the Heart of Speculative Philosophy of History into an Analytical Body
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Haskell Fain on Transplanting the Heart of Speculative Philosophy of History into an Analytical Body
Monday 01 July 2024 is the 98th anniversary of the birth of Haskell Fain (01 July 1926 — 26 July 2018), who was born in New York City on this date in 1926.
Fain’s Between Philosophy and History: The Resurrection of Speculative Philosophy of History Within the Analytic Tradition sought to bring new life to speculative philosophy of history at a time when this was at a particularly low ebb in Anglo-American analytical philosophy.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #HaskellFain #Hempel #CoveringLawModel #narrative #EMForster #plot #story
David Carr and the Historical Reduction
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: David Carr and the Historical Reduction
Friday 28 June 2024 is, to the best of my knowledge, the 84th birthday of David Carr, who was born on this date in Parkersburg, West Virginia, in 1940, and who, again to the best of my knowledge, is still alive, making him an exception among most of the figures I have covered in these episodes.
Carr has written several books and papers on phenomenological philosophy of history. Carr wrote, “Rather than asking: What is history? Or: How do we know history? a phenomenology of history inquires into history as a phenomenon…” Following this phenomenological lead, Carr formulated an historical reduction drawing upon Husserl’s phenomenological reductions.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #DavidCarr #phenomenology #Husserl #reduction #epoche
Giambattista Vico and Ideal Eternal History
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Giambattista Vico and Ideal Eternal History
It is the 356th anniversary of the birth of Giambattista Vico (23 June 1668 – 23 January 1744), who was born in Naples, then part of the Kingdom of Naples, on this date in 1668. The Kingdom of Naples ruled most of the southern part of the Italian Peninsula for more than 500 years.
Vico produced a distinctive conception of history and its study in The New Science (Scienza nuova), which was largely neglected in his time, but was later rediscovered by Jules Michelet and thus reentered European intellectual life through the romantic movement. Isaiah Berlin called Vico a critic of the Enlightenment, and Mark Lilla calls Vico an anti-modern, both of which epithets point to Vico’s thought being out of step with contemporary presuppositions, but Vico, since his rediscovery, has been influential despite his contravening the dominant paradigm.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #Vico #GiambattistaVico #IdealEternalHistory #Verum-Factum #counter-Enlightenment #anti-modern