Today in Philosophy of History
Discussions of persons, events, ideas, and books related to philosophy of history. What is philosophy of history? According to Hegel, it is "nothing other than the thoughtful consideration of history." The philosophical study of history, and the analysis of history from a philosophical perspective, might involve epistemology (How do we know what we know about history?), metaphysics (Is the past real?), methodology (Is history an empirical science?), logic (problems in the philosophical logic of history), and so on.
Episodes
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Kardashev on Civilizations in Cosmological Context
Friday 25 April 2025 is the 93rd anniversary of the birth of Nikolai Semenovich Kardashev (25 April 1932 – 03 August 2019), who was born in Moscow 93 years ago on this date in 1932.
Kardashev will be remembered for his civilization types long after the science of his time is viewed as archaic and of only historical interest. This is a concept tha...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Reinhart Koselleck on Critique and Crisis
Wednesday 23 April 2025 is the 102nd anniversary of the birth of Reinhart Koselleck (23 April 1923 to 03 February 2006), who was born in Görlitz, Germany on this date one hundred two years ago.
Koselleck’s first book, Critique and Crisis: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of Modern Society, analyzed the social and political milieu of pre-revolutionary Fr...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Childe and the Archaeological Conception of Prehistory
Monday 14 April 2025 is the 134th anniversary of the birth of Vere Gordon Childe (14 April 1892 – 19 October 1957), better known to posterity as V. Gordon Childe, who was born in Sydney, Australia, 134 years ago on this date in 1892.
V. Gordon Childe was an archaeologist and prehistorian who contributed to the reconstruction of large swathes ...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Heer’s Philosophical History of Europe
Thursday 10 April 2025 is the 109th anniversary of the birth of Austrian historian Friedrich Heer (10 April 1916 - 18 September 1983), who was born in Vienna 109 years ago on this date in 1916.
Heer wrote The Intellectual History of Europe, which I identify as a philosophical history of Europe and use as the point of departure to discuss Copernicanism, histo...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Husserl’s Other Philosophy of History
It is the 166th anniversary of the birth of Edmund Husserl (08 April 1859 – 27 April 1938), who was born in Proßnitz, in Moravia, then part of the Habsburg Empire, 166 years ago on this date in 1859.
In his final years Husserl worked on philosophy of history, producing the manuscript posthumously published as The Crisis of European Sciences. Earlier in his l...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Joseph de Maistre on History as Experimental Politics
Tuesday 01 April 2025 is the 272nd anniversary of the birth of 01 Joseph Marie, comte de Maistre (01 April 1753 – 26 February 1821) who was born 272 years ago today in 1753 at Chambéry, in the Duchy of Savoy, which was at that time part of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia which was ruled by the House of Savoy.
Joseph de Maistre’s response to ...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: A. J. P. Taylor and the Nuremburg Thesis
Tuesday 25 March 2025 is the 119th anniversary of the birth of Alan John Percivale Taylor (25 March 1906 – 07 September 1990), better known to posterity as A. J. P. Taylor, who was born in Birkdale, England, 119 years ago on this date in 1906.
Taylor’s The Origins of the Second World War, published in 1961, was a controversial book that many viewed at the ...
THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN CIVILIZATION: In Search of Lost Civilizations
In the second thought experiment of this series, I speculate on the problems that would be involved in searching for extinct agricultural (non-industrialized) civilizations on alien worlds. I consider three climatological scenarios that have forced the extinction of civilizations—snowball worlds, water worlds, and desert worlds—through the disruption of settle...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Fustel de Coulanges on the Linkage of Facts as Historical Truth
Tuesday 18 March 2025 is the 195th anniversary of the birth of French historian Numa-Denis Fustel de Coulanges (18 March 1830 – 12 September 1889), who was born in Paris on this date in 1830.
Fustel de Coulanges is primarily remembered for his The Ancient City, but he wrote a number of longer works on French history, including his m...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Abbé de Mably’s Enlightenment Pessimism
Friday 14 March 2025 is the 316th anniversary of the birth of Gabriel Bonnot (14 March 1709 – 02 April 1785 in Paris), who was born at Mably, Loire, and become better known as Gabriel Bonnot de Mably.
Gabriel Bonnot, the Abbé de Mably, was a prolific French historian during the Enlightenment, who, after a brief diplomatic career, retired to a life of schol...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Eliade on Mitigating the Terror of History
Thursday 13 March 2025 is the 118th anniversary of the birth of Mircea Eliade (13 March [Old Style 28 February] 1907 – 22 April 1986), who was born in Bucharest, Romania, on this date in 1907.
Eliade was among the great scholars of religion of the twentieth century, and his book The Myth of the Eternal Return: or, Cosmos and History brought to bear a my...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Vasconcelos and the Cosmic Race of Mexico
Friday 28 February 2025 is the 143rd anniversary of the birth of José Vasconcelos Calderón (28 February 1882 – 30 June 1959), who was born in Oaxaca on this date in 1882.
Vasconcelos has been enormously influential in Mexico, not only as a philosopher, but also in terms of his institutional legacy, since he was rector of the national university and served as...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: G. H. Mead’s Philosophy of the Present
Thursday 27 February 2025 is the 162nd anniversary of the birth of George Herbert Mead (27 February 1863 – 26 April 1931), who was born in South Hadley, Massachusetts, on this date in 1863.
Mead’s contributions to philosophy and psychology come together in his treatment of time, which he forcefully expresses in an uncompromising presentism that is admirable...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Frankfort and the Form of a Civilization
Monday 24 February 2025 is the 128th anniversary of the birth of Henri Frankfort (24 February 1897 – 16 July 1954), who was born in Amsterdam on this date in 1897.
Frankfort was an archaeologist and an author who strained at the limits of his professional specialization and so occasionally found himself engaged in philosophy of history. His practical experi...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Schopenhauer on Herodotus and Historical Categoricity
It is the 237th anniversary of the birth of Arthur Schopenhauer (22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860), who was born in Dantzig, then just as now part of Poland, although Danzig is the German name for the city, and Gdansk is the Polish name for the city that’s used today.
Schopenhauer wrote little about history, but he held distinctive views a...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Copernicus and the Formal Symmetries of History
It is the 552nd anniversary of the birth of Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 to 24 May 1543), who was born in Torun, then just as now part of Poland, on this date in 1473.
The Copernican revolution, like the industrial revolution, wasn’t a single event that happened and now is consigned to the past; both revolutions continue to unfold, and, as ...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Sarmiento on the Conflict between Civilization and Barbarism
Saturday 15 February 2025 is the 214th anniversary of the birth of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (15 February 1811 – 11 September 1888), who was born in Carrascol, a suburb of San Juan, in north central Argentina, on this date in 1811.
Sarmiento was the seventh president of Argentina and the author of one of the great works of Latin America...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: The Portland Vase is Vandalized
At 3:45 p.m. on Friday 07 February 1845—180 years ago today—the Portland Vase was destroyed in an act of vandalism. Since that time it has been reassembled and restored several times. The saga of the Portland vase offers us an opportunity to think about the fate of historical artifacts over the longue durée. What will become of them? What will become of us?
Quora: ...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Goldstein’s Tentative Metaphysics of the Past
It is the 98th anniversary of the birth of Leon J. Goldstein (06 February 1927 to 24 May 2002), who was born in Brooklyn, New York, on this day in 1927.
Goldstein adopts a position that he calls critical philosophy of history, but it is a conception indebted to Henri-Irénée Marrou, and not to more recent analytical philosophy of history as we mig...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Viollet-le-Duc and the Restoration of the Built Environment
A couple of days ago on 27 January 2025 was the 211th anniversary of the birth of Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (27 January 1814 – 17 September 1879), who was born on 27 January in 1814.
Viollet-le-Duc was an architect who specialized in restoring medieval monuments at a time when France and Europe generally was passing through the...
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