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: The Siege of the Acropolis and the Destruction of the Parthenon
On Friday 26 September 1687—338 years ago today —the Parthenon, which had managed to remain nearly intact through more than two millennia, was mostly destroyed in an engagement between the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Venice. The Parthenon had suffered from neglect and damage over more than two thousand years, but 2,119 years af...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Dresden in the Augustan Age
One of the reasons I came to Dresden was to see the reconstruction of the historical core of the city, which had been bombed and burned out on 13-14 February 1945. The reconstruction of Dresden didn’t begin in earnest until after German reunification, and now the city has faithfully reconstructed much of its premodern cityscape in its historical center. The effect is, ...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: The War Triptych of Otto Dix
Otto Dix (02 December 1891 – 25 July 1969) was a student at art school in Dresden when he was conscripted in 1915. He was decorated with the Iron Cross second class for this service in the War. After the war, Dix returned to Dresden and produced several works of art reflecting his experience during the war, including a controversial painting, The Trench (1923), whic...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Adorno on the Possibility of a Philosophy of History without Meaning
Thursday 11 September 2025 is the 122nd anniversary of the birth of Theodor W. Adorno (11 September 1903 – 06 August 1969), who was born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund in Frankfurt am Main on this date in 1903.
Adorno was a prominent representative of the Frankfurt School who drew from influences as divergent as Spengler an...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Fall of the Western Roman Empire
On Monday, 04 September A.D. 476—1,549 years ago today—the last Roman emperor in the west, Romulus Augustulus, abdicated in favor of Odoacer, leader of the German foederati in Italy. There’s a story transmitted by several historians that the Senate sent an embassy to Zeno, the eastern emperor in Constantinople, in the wake of the abdication or deposition of Romulu...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Koyré’s Platonistic Philosophy of the History of Science
Friday 29 August 2025 is the 133rd anniversary of the birth of Alexandre Koyré (born Alexandr Vladimirovich, or Volfovich, Koyra—and in Russian, Александр Владимирович, Вольфович, Койра; 29 August 1892 – 28 April 1964), who was born in Tagenrog, Russia on this date in 1892.
Koyré’s detailed histories of modern science, particularly focu...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Max Scheler on Man’s Place in Nature
Friday 22 August 2024 is the 151st 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’s abiding interest was in philosophical anthropology, to which he devoted his last, short work, Man’s Place in Nature. I discuss this book and Scheler’s conception of the distinctive...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Are subsurface ocean worlds Plato’s cave?
The allegory of the cave is Plato’s great thought experiment in metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, and subsequent philosophy has produced countless variations on Plato’s theme, which is the distinction between appearance and reality. Reading Plato against the grain, I take the allegory of the cave from a naturalistic perspective and explore how certai...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Five Are Executed at Salem for Witchcraft
On Tuesday 19 August 1692—333 years ago today—five persons accused, tried, and found guilty of witchcraft were hanged, probably at Procter’s Ledge in Salem, Massachusetts. Was this an historical anomaly, an exception to what we should expect in the course of human events, or was it, rather, a predictable instance of mass hysteria driven by a moral panic? ...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Formal and Informal Institutions
An Addendum on Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America’s treatment of its theme raises interesting questions about role of democracy and religion in American society, and de Tocqueville’s analysis of pre-Revolutionary French society is parallel in some ways in regard to the role of centralization in French government. I employ a distinction between formal and ...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Alexis de Tocqueville on Democracy in America
Tuesday 29 July 2025 is the 220th anniversary of the birth of Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville (29 July 1805 – 16 April 1859), better known to posterity as Alexis de Tocqueville, who was born in Paris on this date in 1805
Alexis de Tocqueville was the author of the undisputed classic, Democracy in American, but despite the epic sc...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: The Longue Durée of Intellectual History
Fernand Braudel held that the longue durée was the imperceptibly moving structure of history; Schopenhauer held that it was the history of philosophy that was the “fundamental bass” of history. Taking the two together, the slow moving development of ideas furnishes the structure of history, and we can project this back before any mind grasped any idea, as ...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Petrarch and the Development of Historical Consciousness
Sunday 20 July 2025 is the 721st anniversary of the birth of Francesco Petrarch (20 July 1304 to 19 July 1374), who was born in Arezzo, at that time an independent city-state, on this date in AD 1304. Petrarch himself tells us that the 20th of July in 1304 was a Monday, and that he was born at dawn.
Petrarch belongs in one sense to the l...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Bagby’s Unfinished Science of Civilization
Wednesday 16 July 2025 is the 107th anniversary of the birth of Philip Haxall Bagby (16 July 1918 – 21 September 1958), who was born in Henrico County, Virginia, on this date in 1918.
Bagby was only 40 when he died, but he had led an active life as a diplomat stationed in Casablanca and Culcutta, and he produced one book before he died, Culture and Hi...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: White on Metahistory and the Role of the Historian
Saturday 12 July 2025 is the 97th anniversary of the birth of Hayden V. White (12 July 1928 – 05 March 2018), who was born in Martin, Tennessee, on this date in 1928.
White is particularly known for his book Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe, which has been very influential, but also widely criticized. I discu...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: American Independence and the Meaning of Liberty
On Thursday 04 July 1776—249 years ago today—the Continental Congress of the not-yet-existing United States approved the Declaration of Independence, which had been submitted two days previously. Today we celebrate this anniversary of the United States of America, which Thomas Jefferson imagined as an “Empire of Liberty,” but what did liberty mean ...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Tunguska: Tuesday 30 June 1908
At about 7:17 AM local time on Tuesday 30 June 1908—117 years ago today —an enormous explosion occurred in Siberia at Tunguska. Some people refer to the 30th of June as “Asteroid Day” as a kind of commemoration of the Tunguska incident. It is but one of many incidents that remind us we are not isolated from the rest of the universe, but are rather vulnerable to a va...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: J. R. Lucas’ Indeterminism and Temporal Realism
Wednesday 18 June 2025 is the 96th anniversary of the birth of John Randolph Lucas (18 June 1929 – 05 April 2020), better known to posterity as J. R. Lucas, who was born in Guildford in Surrey, on the outskirts of London, on this date in 1929.
Lucas stands within the tradition of analytical philosophy, but he brought theological interests to his ph...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Whitrow’s Natural Philosophy of Time in History
Monday 09 June 2025 is the 113th anniversary of the birth of Gerald James Whitrow (9 June 1912 – 2 June 2000), better known to posterity as G. J. Whitrow, who was born at Kimmeridge in Dorset, on the English Channel, on this date in 1912.
G. J. Whitrow’s two books, The Natural Philosophy of Time and Time in History are essentially reading in the ph...
TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: An Addendum on J. Glenn Gray and Hannah Arendt on Thinking
In my episode on J. Glenn Gray I quoted Timothy Fuller on Hannah Arendt, and that quote stuck in my mind as something I wanted to further examine. In this episode I consider the claim attributed by Fuller to Arendt that thinking and acting can’t be combined, and along the way I touch on the work of Antony Flew, Susan Stebbing, Jürgen Haberma...
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