Today in Philosophy of History

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...

TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Patočka’s Heretical Solidarity of the Shaken

Sunday 01 June 2025 is the 118th anniversary of the birth of Jan Patočka (01 June 1907 – 13 March 1977), who was born in Turnov, Bohemia, on this date in 1907.

Patočka found himself as a philosopher behind the Iron Curtain when Czechoslokia was surrendered to the Soviet sphere after the Second World War. As a result, he was largely banned from teachi...

TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: J. Glenn Gray and the Lived Experience of Combat

Tuesday 27 May 2025 is the 112th anniversary of the birth of Jesse Glenn Gray (27 May 1913 – 30 October 1977), better known as J. Glenn Gray, who was born in rural Mifflintown, Pennsylvania, on this date in 1913.

J. Glenn Gray wrote a classic memoir of combat experience, The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle, which was, at the same time, a philo...

TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Pieper on the Teleology of Hope and History

Sunday 04 May 2025 is the 121st anniversary of the birth of Josef Pieper (04 May 1904 – 06 November 1997), who was born in the small German town of Elte, in North Rhine-Westphalia, on this date in 1904.

Pieper was a Catholic and a Thomist who wrote many philosophical works of a devotional character, and we could even call his philosophy of history “devo...

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 ...