Oswald Spengler and the Theory of Historical Cycles

Antiquity ◽  
1927 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. G. Collingwood
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
General Theory ◽  
The West ◽  
Long Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
Historical Cycles ◽  
European Thought ◽  
Complete History

Since Plato announced that the course of history returned upon itself in 72,000 years, since Polybius discerned a “circular movement” by which the history of states came back, over and over again, to the same point, the theory of historical cycles has been a commonplace of European thought. Familiar to the thinkers of the Renaissance, it was modified by Vico in the early eighteenth century and again by Hegel in the early nineteenth; and a complete history of the idea would show many curious transformations and cover a long period of time. Here no attempt will be made to summarize this story; the subject of the present paper is the latest and, to ourselves, most striking exposition of the general theory, contained in Dr Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West.

Is Globalisation Yesterday’s News?

Itinerario ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-128
Author(s):  
A. G. Hopkins
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
United States ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of ◽  
Lively Debate ◽  
The Subject

Globalisation is now a fashionable topic of historical research. Books and articles routinely use the term, though often in a loose manner that has yet to realise the full potential of the subject. The question arises as to whether globalisation, as currently applied by historians, is sufficiently robust to resist inevitable changes in historiographical fashion. The fact that globalisation is a process and not a single theory opens the way, not only to over-general applications of the term, but also to rich research possibilities derived in particular from other social sciences. One such prospect, which ought to be at the centre of all historians’ interests, is how to categorise the evolution of the process. This question, which has yet to stimulate the lively debate it needs, is explored here by identifying three successive phases or sequences between the eighteenth century and the present, and joining them to the history of the empires that were their principal agents. These phases, termed proto-globalisation, modern globalisation, and postcolonial globalisation provide the context for reviewing the history of the West, including the United States, and in principle of the wider world too.

Kant and a Philosophical History of Logic

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huaping Lu-Adler
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
History Of Logic ◽  
Philosophical Discourse ◽  
Systematic Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
Kantian Theory

This chapter discusses certain exegetical challenges posed by Kant’s logic corpus, which comprises the Logic compiled by Jäsche, Kant’s notes on logic, transcripts of his logic lectures, and remarks about logic in his own publications. It argues for a “history of philosophical problems” method by which to reconstruct a Kantian theory of logic that is maximally coherent, philosophically interesting, and historically significant. To ensure a principled application of this method, the chapter considers Kant’s conception of history against the background of the controversy between eclecticism and systematic philosophy that shaped the German philosophical discourse during the early eighteenth century. It thereby looks for an angle to make educated decisions about how to select materials from each of the periods considered in the book and builds a historical narrative that can best inform our understanding of Kant’s theory of logic.

Schopenhauer’s Pessimism in Context

2020 ◽  
pp. 283-298
Author(s):  
Mark Migotti
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century

In this chapter, the author attempts to establish what is philosophically living and what is philosophically dead in Schopenhauer’s pessimism. Against the background of the intriguing the history of the terms “optimism” and “pessimism”—in debates about Leibniz’s theodicy in the early eighteenth century and the popularity of Schopenhauer in the late nineteenth century, respectively—the author points up the distinction between affirming life, which all living beings do naturally, and subscribing to philosophical optimism (or pessimism), which is possible only for reflective beings like us. Next, the author notes the significance of Schopenhauer’s claim that optimism is a necessary condition of theism and explains its bearing on his pessimistic argument for the moral unacceptability of suicide. The chapter concludes that Schopenhauer’s case for pessimism is not conclusive, but instructive; his dim view of the prospects for leading a truly rewarding, worthwhile human life draws vivid attention to important questions about how and to what degree an atheistic world can nevertheless be conducive to human flourishing.

Euler's contribution to number theory

2007 ◽  
Vol 91 (522) ◽  
pp. 453-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Shiu
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Number Theory ◽  
Scientific Output ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Peter The Great ◽  
Complete Work ◽  
Leonhard Euler ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Historic Background

Individuals who excel in mathematics have always enjoyed a well deserved high reputation. Nevertheless, a few hundred years back, as an honourable occupation with means to social advancement, such an individual would need a patron in order to sustain the creative activities over a long period. Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) had the fortune of being supported successively by Peter the Great (1672-1725), Frederich the Great (1712-1786) and the Great Empress Catherine (1729-1791), enabling him to become the leading mathematician who dominated much of the eighteenth century. In this note celebrating his tercentenary, I shall mention his work in number theory which extended over some fifty years. Although it makes up only a small part of his immense scientific output (it occupies only four volumes out of more than seventy of his complete work) it is mostly through his research in number theory that he will be remembered as a mathematician, and it is clear that arithmetic gave him the most satisfaction and also much frustration. Gazette readers will be familiar with many of his results which are very well explained in H. Davenport's famous text [1], and those who want to know more about the historic background, together with the rest of the subject matter itself, should consult A. Weil's definitive scholarly work [2], on which much of what I write is based. Some of the topics being mentioned here are also set out in Euler's own Introductio in analysin infinitorum (1748), which has now been translated into English [3].

scholarly journals Emilio Betti: from the history of law to the general theory of interpretation

2020 ◽  
pp. 30-44
Author(s):  
Iuliia Rossius
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Practical Importance ◽  
Dialectical Tension ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Law ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Theory Of Law ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Hans Georg Gadamer

The goal of this article consists in demonstration of the impact of research in the field of history and theory of law alongside the hermeneutics of Emilio Betti impacted the vector of this philosophical thought. The subject of this article is the lectures read by Emilio Betti (prolusioni) in 1927 and 1948, as well as his writings of 1949 and 1962. Analysis is conducted on the succession of Betti's ideas in these works, which is traced despite the discrepancy in their theme (legal and philosophical). The author indicates “legal” origin of the canons of Bettis’ hermeneutics, namely the canon of autonomy of the object. Emphasis is placed on the problem of objectivity in Betti's theory, as well as on dialectical tension between the historicity of the interpreted subject and strangeness of the object that accompanies legal, as well as any other type of interpretation. The article reveals the key moment of Betti's criticism of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Regarding the question of historicity of the subject of interpretation. The conclusion is made that the origin of the general theory of interpretation lies in the approaches and methods developed and implemented by Betti back in legal hermeneutics and in studying history of law.   Betti's philosophical theory was significantly affected by the idea on the role of modern legal dogma in interpretation of the history of law. Namely this idea that contains the principle of historicity of the subject of interpretation, which commenced  the general hermeneutical theory of Emilio Betti, was realized in canon of the relevance of understanding in the lecture in 1948, and later in the “general theory of interpretation”. The author also underlines that the question of objectivity of understanding, which has crucial practical importance in legal hermeneutics, was transmitted into the philosophical works of E. Betti, finding reflection in dialectic of the subject and object of interpretation.

Kazembe and the Portuguese 1798–1832

1961 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Cunnison
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The West ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century

During the century from 1760 to 1860 the territory of the present southern Katanga, eastern Angola and north-eastern Rhodesia lay to a great extent under the suzerainty of two powerful monarchs, Mwata Yamvo in the west and Kazembe in the east. Their common border was the Lualaba river. Both were Lunda by tribe: Mwata Yamvo was the senior in that it was from the capital of his kingdom, which had been in existence possibly for a century or more, that Kazembe's ancestor set out in the early eighteenth century to conquer east of the Lualaba. About 1740 he established his own capital near Lake Mweru in the lower Luapula valley.

‘Poor Protestant Flies’: Conversions to Catholicism in Early Eighteenth Century England

1978 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 289-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eamon Duffy
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Daniel Defoe ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
The Press ◽  
History Of ◽  
Roast Beef ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
Popish Plot

Through the stormy and divided history of religion in seventeenth and early eighteenth-century England runs one constant and unvarying stream—hatred and fear of popery. That ‘gross and cruel superstition’ haunted the protestant imagination. The murderous paranoia of the popish plot was the last occasion on which catholic blood was spilled in the service of the national obsession, but the need to preserve ‘our Country from Papal Tyranny; our Laws, our Estates, our Liberties from Papal Invasion; our Lives from Papal Persecution; and our Souls from Papal Superstition . . .’ continued to exercise men of every shade of churchmanship, and of none. Throughout the early eighteenth century zealous churchmen sought to keep alive ‘the Spirit of Aversion to Popery whereby the Protestant Religion hath been chiefly supported among us’, and publications poured from the press reminding men of the barbarities of the papists, ancient and modern, the fires of Smithfield and the headman’s axe of Thorn. Catholicism was bloody, tyrannical, enslaving, and cant phrases rolled pat from tongue and pen—popery and arbitrary government, popery and wooden shoes. The tradition was universal, as integral a part of the nation’s self-awareness as beer and roast-beef, and equally above reason. There were, observed Daniel Defoe, ‘ten thousand stout fellows that would spend the last drop of their blood against Popery that do not know whether it be a man or a horse’.

The Great Migration and Individual Travels: Precursors of Serbian Modernity?

2019 ◽  
pp. 150-169
Author(s):  
Dragana Grbić
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Great Migration ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
South Slavs ◽  
The Great Migration ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
Western European ◽  
European Thought

This chapter situates the travels of Dimitrije Dositej Obradović in the context of the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Serbian Great Migration, which facilitated the dissemination of Western European thought throughout Serbia. Obradović’s travels typified this process. As a young man, he fled from a monastery and spent much of his life traveling through Germany, France, Italy, England and elsewhere in Europe. He paid his way by teaching languages, and when he returned home, he translated European works into the Serbian vernacular. His oeuvre brought the Enlightenment thought of Voltaire, Leibniz, and Kant to Serbian literature and introduced readers to the works of Fénelon, Rousseau, and Marmontel. Obradović’s writings, particularly his autobiography, not only shaped eighteenth-century Serbian culture, but also influenced South Slavs, Greeks, and Romanians in the Balkans. .

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Quintin Colville ◽  
James Davey
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Influences ◽  
The Past ◽  
Current State ◽  
Naval History ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Many ◽  
Historical Profession

This introduction gives on overview of the sub-discipline of naval history since its emergence in the early eighteenth-century. It outlines the various social, cultural and political influences that have shaped the subject over the past three centuries, and discusses its relationship with the wider historical profession. The second half of the introduction sums up the current state of naval history, describing the many historiographies that now have a bearing on how the subject is conducted. Each contribution to the volume is introduced in this context, offering a precis of the chapters that follow.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document