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TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
Reinhart Koselleck and the Role of Conceptual History
Tuesday 23 April 2024 is the 101st 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 one years ago.
Koselleck’s historical thought is of a piece with late twentieth century historiography, in its conceptual sophistication coupled with a suspicion of explicitly formulated philosophies of history, which cannot but appear to be folly in hindsight. But, in the light of Hayden White’s influence, which is pervasive in this historiographical milieu, can we not find a philosophy of history implicit even within skeptical historiography, as White found a philosophy of history implicit in all 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/reinhart-koselleck-and-the-role-of
Video: https://youtu.be/xzKrP6xysg4
Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nick-nielsen94/episodes/Reinhart-Koselleck-and-the-Role-of-Conceptual-History-e2ionj8
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TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
Immanuel Kant and the Hope for Cosmological Progress
Monday 22 April 2024 is the tricentennial of the birth of Immanuel Kant (22 April 1724 to 12 February 1804), who was born three hundred years ago today in Königsberg, now Kaliningrad, on this day in 1724.
Kant is counted among the greatest of philosophers, and his legacy is both large and complicated. Reconstructing his philosophy of history we find elements of providentialism, progressivism, and naturalism, all unified by Kant’s Enlightenment outlook. These several parallel influences in Kant’s thought yields a distinctive conception of historical progress in which human beings are a means to a cosmological end.
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/immanuel-kant-and-the-hope-for-cosmological
Video: https://youtu.be/4Th1b2Hp8SQ
Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nick-nielsen94/episodes/Immanuel-Kant-and-the-Hope-for-Cosmological-Progress-e2in3pb
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TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
A Complexity Ladder for Big History
A paper of mine has just appeared in the Journal of Big History special issue on complexity. This paper isn’t specifically about philosophy of history, but it does touch on some philosophical problems, so I will consider some of these problems in the context of philosophy of history. In particular, I will discuss definitions and the use of scientific measurement in the increasing formalization of knowledge and what this could portend for history.
Nielsen, J. N. (2024). A Complexity Ladder for Big History. Journal of Big History, VII(2); 1-8.
DOI | https://doi.org/10.22339/jbh.v7i2.7202
Paper: https://jbh.journals.villanova.edu/index.php/JBH/article/view/2976/2780
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
Video: https://youtu.be/DzQcJtZ8zTc
Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nick-nielsen94/episodes/A-Complexity-Ladder-for-Big-History-e2iksuo
Text post: https://geopolicraticus.substack.com/p/a-complexity-ladder-for-big-history
#philosophy of history#youtube#emergence#complexity#emergent complexity#big history#definition#formalization#cliodynamics#Youtube
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TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
Leonard Woolley on Digging Up the Past
Wednesday 17 April 2024 is the 144th anniversary of the birth of Sir Charles Leonard Woolley, better known to posterity as C. Leonard Woolley (17 April 1880 – 20 February 1960), who was born on the outskirts of London on this day in 1880.
Woolley was the archaeologist who was chosen as Field Director for the joint University of Pennsylvania and British Museum excavation at Ur, and in this position her oversaw the recovery of some of the greatest treasures of the ancient world yet discovered. Woolley was an indefatigable worker, known for his long days and nights in the field, and his many popular books and lectures. He lacks the name recognition of Howard Carter, but this finds were of similar significance, and he stands at the head of archaeologists who have and are increasingly shaping our understanding of the past.
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/leonard-woolley-on-digging-up-the
Video: https://youtu.be/kulAHTnt_8E
Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nick-nielsen94/episodes/Leonard-Woolley-on-Digging-Up-the-Past-e2igon7
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My paper “A Complexity Ladder for Big History” is now available in the Journal of Big History, in the special issue on complexity:
Nielsen, J. N. (2024). A Complexity Ladder for Big History. Journal of Big History, VII(2); 1-8.
DOI | https://doi.org/10.22339/jbh.v7i2.7202
ABSTRACT
Complexity is a central problem for big history because big history has made complexity a central theme, constructing a cosmological periodization based on the sequential emergence of qualitatively distinct forms of complexity. How can the big historian differentiate distinct thresholds of emergent complexity while subordinating the entire sequence of thresholds to a single metric of complexity that demonstrates the increase of complexity over multiple scales of magnitude and across qualitatively distinct forms of complexity? The cosmologists’ use of a cosmic distance ladder suggests an analogous construction for complexity: a complexity ladder for big history. While no complexity ladder is formulated in this paper, the program required for a complexity ladder is sketched.
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TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
Arnold Toynbee and Thought Experiments in Civilization
Sunday 14 April 2024 is the 135th anniversary of the birth of Arnold Joseph Toynbee (14 April 1889 – 22 October 1975), who was born in London on this date in 1889.
Toynbee is one of the most influential figures in philosophy of history, though neither historians nor philosophers want to claim him for their own. His epic multi-volume A Study of History, which brought him fame during the mid-twentieth century, is now little more than a curiosity. His scholarship is both praised as epoch-making and condemned as shoddy. Do we still have something to learn from Toynbee today?
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/arnold-toynbee-and-thought-experiments
Video: https://youtu.be/7YKupH54j3c
Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nick-nielsen94/episodes/Arnold-Toynbee-and-Thought-Experiments-in-Civilization-e2icem0
#philosophy of history#youtube#Arnold Toynbee#A Study of History#counterfactual#thought experiment#civilization#Youtube
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TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
Thinking Historically about the Future
A comment on my episode on Ernst Jünger made me aware of a statement by Friedrich Engels made in 1887 that anticipates some of the most surprising characteristics of the First World War, and this a generation prior to the war. This instance of historical prediction is an opportunity to discuss the relationship of prediction to history and philosophy of history.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nick-nielsen94/episodes/Thinking-Historically-about-the-Future-e2i30r6
Text post: https://geopolicraticus.substack.com/p/thinking-historically-about-the-future
#philosophy of history#youtube#Friedrich Engels#Zigismund Borkheim#prediction#retrodiction#Marxism#futurism#Youtube
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TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
Husserl and Philosophy of History as a Crisis Discipline
Monday 08 April 2024 is the 165th anniversary of the birth of Edmund Husserl (08 April 1859 – 27 April 1938), who was born in Proßnitz, Moravia, on this date in 1859.
Husserl is known for developing the method of phenomenology, but in the final years of his life he turned to the problems of history as a philosophical response to contemporaneous crises. Husserl was an arch-rationalist who saw the pursuit of reason as the infinite task of humanity. I argue that there is a path that can be traced from Plato through Pelagius and Siger of Brabant to Husserl, and it is in this tradition that Husserl’s philosophy of history is to be located.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nick-nielsen94/episodes/Husserl-and-Philosophy-of-History-as-a-Crisis-Discipline-e2i5mja
Text post: https://geopolicraticus.substack.com/p/edmund-husserl-and-philosophy-of
#philosophy of history#youtube#Edmund Husserl#phenomenology#Pelagianism#teleology#crisis#Erich Voegelin#Youtube
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TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
René Descartes and Non-philosophies of History
Today is the 428th anniversary of the birth of René Descartes (31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650), who was born in La Haye en Touraine, in central France, on this date in 1596. The town where he was born has since been re-named for him.
Descartes was a skeptic of history, doubting (as he doubted most things) that history could be the basis of certain knowledge. However, Descartes’ skepticism about history was a spur to some historians to submit their discipline to Cartesian criticism, but Descartes also left a legacy of neglect of history, which was thus largely passed by during the scientific revolution.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nick-nielsen94/episodes/Ren-Descartes-and-Non-philosophies-of-History-e2hqigi
Text post: https://geopolicraticus.substack.com/p/rene-descartes-and-non-philosophies
#philosophy of history#youtube#René Descartes#Descartes#skepticism#social history#micro-history#Cartesianism#Youtube
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TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
Nathan Rotenstreich on Time in History
Sunday 31 March 2024 is the 110th anniversary of the birth of Nathan Rotenstreich (31 March 1914 to 11 October 1993), who was born in Sambir in the Ukraine on this date in 1914.
Rotenstreich wrote Between Past and Present: An Essay on History and Time and Meaning in History both specifically concerned with philosophy of history, and many other books and papers. He focused on the relationship between time and history, which constitutes an exception among philosophers of history.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nick-nielsen94/episodes/Nathan-Rotenstreich-on-Time-in-History-e2hq5el
Text post: https://geopolicraticus.substack.com/p/nathan-rotenstreich-on-time-in-history
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TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
Ernst Jünger and Mechanized War as a Boundary Condition
Friday 29 March 2024 is the 129th anniversary of the birth of Ernst Jünger (29 March 1895 – 17 February 1998), who was born in Heidelberg on this date in 1895. He served in both world wars of the twentieth century and lived more than a century.
Jünger is mostly remembered for his memoir of the First World War, Storm of Steel, but during the inter-war period he also produced a number of controversial books and essays that prophesied the future conditions of mechanized war, and of society transformed by mechanized war. I argue that, for Jünger, mechanized war is a boundary condition from which other historical novelties emerge.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nick-nielsen94/episodes/Ernst-Jnger-and-Mechanized-War-as-a-Boundary-Condition-e2hndu0
#philosophy of history#youtube#Ernst Jünger#Ernst Junger#war#philosophy of war#warfare#industrialization#worker#Materialschlacht#Youtube
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TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
Robert Heilbronner on Human Agency in Social History
Sunday 24 March 2024 is the 105th anniversary of the birth of Robert L. Heilbronner (24 March 1919 – 04 January 2005), who was born in New York City on this date in 1919.
Heilbronner’s best known book is his history of economic thought The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers (1953). In addition to his books on economics, Heilbroner also wrote a couple of books that take an historical view of the future, The Future as History (1959) and Visions of the Future (1995). Heilbronner’s conception of social history is, in a sense, Arendt’s mass man seen through a more optimistic lens, with the possibility of human agency shaping the future.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nick-nielsen94/episodes/Robert-Heilbronner-on-Human-Agency-in-Social-History-e2hhcbg
Text post: https://geopolicraticus.substack.com/p/robert-heilbroner-on-human-agency
#philosophy of history#youtube#Robert Heilbroner#social history#mass man#J. M. E. McTaggart#futurism#time#economics#Youtube
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TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
Wars and Rumors of Wars
A comment on my Ernst Troeltsch episode provoked me to thinking further about the wave of public enthusiasm that sometimes greets the outbreak of a war. In the case of the First World War, this wave of public enthusiasm has been given a name: the August Madness. How are we to understand the August Madness and those who participated in it?
Beyond the specifics of the First World War and the August Madness, public enthusiasm for war poses many conceptual problems. How and why does the individual respond to social contagion? Is it right to be enthusiastic for a just war? Why does public enthusiasm for war flag in longer conflicts? Ought measures to be taken to shape or modify public enthusiasm for war?
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nick-nielsen94/episodes/Wars-and-Rumors-of-Wars-e2hduos
#philosophy of history#youtube#war#philosophy of war#ernst jünger#WWI#First World War#world war i#Ernst Troeltsch#Youtube
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TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
Ankersmit on Linguistic Transcendentalism and Historical Experience
Wednesday 20 March 2024 is the 79th birthday of Franklin Rudolf Ankersmit (born 20 March 1945), who was born in Deventer, the Netherlands, on this date in 1945.
Ankersmit’s historical thought is enmeshed in contemporary issues and we find him engaging with Richard Rorty, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Donald Davidson, Arthur Danto, Hayden White, Erich Auerbach, and Jörn Rüsen, inter alia. His book Sublime Historical Experience sets up a dichotomy between the linguistic transcendentalism of the linguistic turn in historical theory on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the attempt to find or to cultivate sublime (pre-linguistic, non-cognitive) historical experience.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nick-nielsen94/episodes/Ankersmit-on-Linguistic-Transcendentalism-and-Historical-Experience-e2hbq3q
#philosophy of history#youtube#Frank Ankersmit#historical experience#sublime historical experience#linguistic transcendentalism#historical representation#Youtube
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TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
Nikolai Berdyaev and Eschatological Providentialism
Monday 18 March 2024 is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Бердя́ев; 18 March, Old Style 06 March, 1874 – 24 March 1948), who was born in Obukhov, near Kiev, on this date in 1874.
Berdyaev was a Russian aristocrat who became a Marxist and then a Christian, and who always seemed to find himself on the wrong side of the authorities in his homeland. Berdyaev applied his Christian personalism to philosophical anthropology and produced a philosophy of history that raises eschatology over salvation history. Like the thought of Simone Weil, this is a providential philosophy of history with a difference.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nick-nielsen94/episodes/Nikolai-Berdyaev-and-Eschatological-Providentialism-e2h9212
Text post: https://geopolicraticus.substack.com/p/nikolai-alexandrovich-berdyaev
#philosophy of history#youtube#Nikolai Berdyaev#providentialism#Christian existentialism#eschatology#existentialism#Youtube
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TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Patrick Gardiner and the Many Meanings of Explanation
Sunday 17 March 2024 is the 102nd anniversary of the birth of Patrick Gardiner (17 March 1922 – 24 June 1997), who was born in Chelsea, London, on this date in 1922.
Gardiner was the editor of two influential collections of readings, the Oxford Readings in Philosophy volume on philosophy of history, and Theories of History: Readings from Classical and Contemporary Sources, and a book-length study on historical explanation. His work provides a meticulous analysis of explanation, recognizing many different forms of explanation, and the presuppositions of these various forms of explanation, he argued, have given us philosophies of history as diverse of Marx’s materialism and Collingwood’s idealism.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
Podcast: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/iwb7FAKI3Hb
Text post: https://geopolicraticus.substack.com/p/patrick-gardiner-and-the-many-meanings
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TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
Raymond Aron on Tyrannical and Aimless History
Thursday 14 March 2024 is the 119th anniversary of the birth of Raymond Aron (14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983), who was born in Paris on this date in 1905.
Aron, like Georg Simmel and Robert M. MacIver, was a sociologist who was throughout his life also concerned with the problems of history and of philosophy of history, while also making forays into political philosophy at the intersection of sociology and philosophy. Aron’s conception of history is the antithesis of that of many philosophers who seek wholeness and unity in history, and claim to find it; for Aron, history is aimless, fragmentary, and pluralistic.
Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD
Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/
Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nick-nielsen94/episodes/Raymond-Aron-on-Tyrannical-and-Aimless-History-e2h2na4
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