Historicism

2021 ◽  
pp. 115-123
Author(s):  
Michael Frede
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical View ◽  
Historical Fact ◽  
Original Insight

This chapter studies historicism. It is often said that philosophical views and, indeed, philosophy itself are historical phenomena. The historian, in considering the fact that somebody took a certain philosophical view as a historical fact, just treats this fact under one aspect; namely, that of how it fits into and can be explained out of history. But there is another aspect to the fact that he systematically disregards; namely, whether the view is true and whether it is warranted by the argument in its favour. This just reflects the fact that the historian does not himself take a stand on the philosophical issues. But it is a real aspect of the fact that somebody holds a certain view that the view is true or false, that one manages or fails to solve a problem, to answer a question, by advancing it. Ultimately, however, it is important to make sure that in one’s rejection of any kind of historicism one does not lose sight of the original insight which the historicist just pushed to an untenable extreme; namely, the insight that philosophical views, or philosophical judgements, are historical phenomena.

Explanation

2021 ◽  
pp. 95-105
Author(s):  
Michael Frede
Keyword(s):  
State Of The Art ◽  
The State ◽  
Philosophical View ◽  
Historical Fact

This chapter discusses the explanation of historical philosophical views. Strictly speaking, the explanation of the philosophical view is the task of the philosopher. What the historian is concerned with is the historical fact that a certain view was held by a certain person in a certain context, the historical fact that this view came to be held by a whole group of philosophers, the historical fact that it became part of the state of the art to think of it as an acceptable or even a true view. Thus, historians do not explain the philosophical view in terms of what they take to be reasons for it but in terms of the reasons for which it was actually held because they were thought to constitute adequate grounds for holding it. The question then arises why a philosopher would hold this to be adequate grounds for the view. And in the simplest case, the answers will be in terms of another historical fact; namely that, by the standards of the time, this would have seemed to be adequate grounds to philosophers then, which raises the further question of why philosophers then would have taken this to be adequate grounds. At this point, one could go on to explain this by referring to further historical facts; namely, the fact that philosophers of the time would have explained this in such and such a way.

The Changing Face of Irish Ireland: Séamus Ó Grianna's and Éilís Ní Dhuibhne's Fictions of the Donegal Gaeltacht

2014 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 357-380
Author(s):  
Ríona Nic Congáil
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
Irish Language ◽  
Shared Interest ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
Historical Fact ◽  
Insight Into

Séamus Ó Grianna and Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, whose lifespans overlapped only briefly, rank among the most prolific Irish writers of the twentieth century. Their bilingualism, moreover, offers them access to two languages, cultures, and viewpoints. Their shared interest in the Donegal Gaeltacht during the revivalist period, and their use of fiction to explore and represent it, provide their readers with a remarkable insight into the changing ideologies of twentieth-century Ireland, and particularly Irish-Ireland, touching on broad issues that are linguistic, cultural, political, gendered, and spatial. This essay begins by analyzing the narrative similarities between Ó Grianna's Mo Dhá Róisín and Ní Dhuibhne's Hiring Fair Trilogy, and proceeds to examine how both writers negotiate historical fact, the Irish language, the performance of Gaelic culture, the burgeoning women's movement, and the chasm between rural and urban Ireland of the revival. Through this approach, the essay demonstrates that the fictions of these two writers reveal as much about their own agendas and the dominant ideas of the epoch in which they were writing, as they do about life in the Donegal Gaeltacht in the early twentieth century.

JOHN LOUIS ESPOSITO TENTANG DIALOG PERADABAN ISLAM-BARAT

1970 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Moh. Salman Hamdani
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Entry Point ◽  
The West ◽  
Strong Bond ◽  
Historical Fact ◽  
Muslim Intellectuals ◽  
Abrahamic Religions ◽  
Cultural Dialogue ◽  
The Relationship

This paper aims to provide explanation about John Louis Esposito’s insights on therelationship between Islam and The West. The relationship is a fluctuative one, some tensionsand even open conflict may occur. Some events become the entry point to the relationship, forinstance, the crusades that is not only happened physically but also, through this war, the meetingbetween Islam and The West establishes inter cultural dialogue among them.John Louis Esposito’s views on the relationship between Islam and The West ispositioned in view of some Muslim intellectuals and orientalists to emphasize its originality. Theintellectual positions do not put it on pros or cons side in the context of the relationship betweenIslam and The West.Historically, the relationship between Islam and The West actually has a theologicallystrong bond that there is common ground and similarities between Islam and The West. Islamand The west are inherited with Jewish and Christian traditions. Islam like Christianity andJudaism are religions ‘of the sky’ that are allied in Abrahamic religions. Therefore, according toJohn L. Esposito, based on historical fact, there were a real strong bond between Islam and theWest and it started centuries ago .

Muslim Commitment in North America

1994 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-244
Author(s):  
Kathleen M. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Labor Migration ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Spiritual Guidance ◽  
Minority Status ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Muslim Minority ◽  
Institutional Organization ◽  
Original Insight ◽  
Secular Power ◽  
Islamic Society

The purpose of this paper is to examine the curtent debates within theAmerican Muslim community regatding the expression of Muslim religiouscommitment in American life. The size of the community is nowestimated to exceed four million (Stone 1991), and the numlxx of Muslimimmigrants entering the United Stab has more than doubled since 1960.During the same period, the number of American converts to Islam hasalso risen. Both the growth of the Muslim community in mxent yeas, inthe United Stab and worldwide, and the increasing number of Muslimsin "diaspora" as Muslim labor migration continues, which has resulted ina heightened sense of "minority" status among Muslims (Haddad 1991),have raised many crucial questions concerning religious expression:Should Muslims remain marginal to secular power relations in accordancewith the teachings of classical Islam or adopt a strategy of assimilationwhich, in the American context, includes the p d t of claims to equalprotection under civil law? What happens to a religious community, suchas the Muslim community, as it develops the institutional organization itneeds to preserve its identity in a non-Islamic society? Can it still remainopen to the sowe of inspiration and spiritual guidance located in the foldof the Islamic world? Or does the locus of authority shift? Changingcircumstances require adaptation, and yet that adaptation involves the riskof losing the connection to the heatt of the original insight and cultm.Conflicting tesponses to these and related questions raise issues ofself-representation and lifwle. The resulting theological and ideologicaldebates within the Muslim community itself provide and refine variousmodels for Muslim minority life in a non-Islamic envimnment. They alsoillustrate the tension between alienation and integration ...

scholarly journals On Russell’s 1927 Book The Analysis of Matter

Philosophies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
Said Mikki
Keyword(s):  
General Relativity ◽  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Philosophy Of Nature ◽  
Foundations Of Physics ◽  
The World ◽  
Ordinal Space ◽  
Historical Fact

The goal of this article is to bring into wider attention the often neglected important work by Bertrand Russell on the philosophy of nature and the foundations of physics, published in the year 1927. It is suggested that the idea of what could be named Russell space, introduced in Part III of that book, may be viewed as more fundamental than many other types of spaces since the highly abstract nature of the topological ordinal space proposed by Russell there would incorporate into its very fabric the emergent nature of spacetime by deploying event assemblages, but not spacetime or particles, as the fundamental building blocks of the world. We also point out the curious historical fact that the book The Analysis of Matter can be chronologically considered the earliest book-length generic attempt to reflect on the relation between quantum mechanics, just emerging by that time, and general relativity.

Materialism and the Future of Aging in America

1983 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 161-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert F. Almeder
Keyword(s):  
Colonial America ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Favorable Attitude ◽  
Social Attitude ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Ethical Attitudes ◽  
Philosophical View ◽  
Future Success ◽  
The Future ◽  
Attitudes Toward Aging

In Growing Old in America, David Fischer argues that colonial America witnessed a sudden and revolutionary shift in social attitude from gerontophilia to gerontophobia. It is argued here that the shift can be explained as the necessary result of an emerging materialism which came to dominate mercantile America. It is shown how philosophical materialism requires an attitude of denigration toward aging and the elderly, and that the future of our collective attitude toward the elderly is wedded philosophically to the future success or failure of philosophical materialism. It is also suggested that the future of materialism in America looks dim and that there will emerge a strong philosophical base adequate for reforming ethical attitudes and engendering a much more favorable attitude toward the elderly in general. It is suggested that positive or negative attitudes toward aging and the elderly are rooted in unconscious commitments to non-materialistic (dualistic) or materialistic views on the nature of man. The two basically different views on the nature of man beget the two basically different views and attitudes toward aging and the elderly. Which attitude is right is a function of which philosophical view is correct and the paper closes with some evidence that materialism is on the wane.

Liberalism

Philosophy ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 49 (187) ◽  
pp. 13-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. J. McCloskey
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Major Elements ◽  
Respect For Persons ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Value Judgments ◽  
Philosophical Basis ◽  
Reduction Of Pain ◽  
Historical Fact ◽  
Social Arrangements ◽  
Liberal Thought

Liberalism is commonly believed, especially by its exponents, to be opposed to interference by way of enforcing value judgments or concerning itself with the individual's morality. My concern is to show that this is not so and that liberalism is all the better for this. Many elements have contributed to liberal thought as we know it today, the major elements being the liberalism of which Locke is the most celebrated exponent, which is based upon a belief in natural, human rights; the liberalism of which Kant is the best known exponent, which is based on respect for persons as ends in themselves; and the liberalism of Bentham and the Mills, which is based upon utilitarian ethical theories and most especially with concern for pleasure and the reduction of pain. These different elements of liberalism have led to different emphases and different political and social arrangements, but all have involved a concern to safeguard values and to use force to that end. Today they constitute strands of thought which go to make up liberal thought as we now know it, hence it is not simply a historical fact about liberalism, but a fact about its philosophical basis, that liberalism is firmly involved in certain value and moral commitments. In the remainder of this paper I shall seek to bring this out.

Ainsworth's Historical Accuracy Reconsidered

1972 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-28
Author(s):  
Llewellyn Ligocki
Keyword(s):  
Historical Novel ◽  
Sir Walter Scott ◽  
Crucial Importance ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
The Past ◽  
Waverley Novels ◽  
Literary Figure ◽  
Historical Fact ◽  
The Common ◽  
Failure To Progress

After Sir Walter Scott made the historical novel popular with his Waverley novels, many other writers, including the major novelists Dickens and Thackeray and the minor novelists Ainsworth, G. P. R. James, Bulwer-Lytton, and Reade, took up the form. But while the major novelists are credited with artistry in their use of history, the minor ones are generally regarded as hacks who used history indiscriminately in any way they wished in order to “make saleable novels.” The disparaging criticism of William Harrison Ainsworth's use of history exemplifies this unreflective critical tendency.For several probable reasons, critics have not been inclined to credit Ainsworth with using history responsibly; however, none of the reasons is based on an examination of his sources: his rapid ascension and decline as an important literary figure, his popularity with the common reading public, and his failure to progress artistically after his first few good novels. His artistic growth seems to have ended in 1840, forty-one years before the publication of his last novel. These critics have seen him as a “manufacturer of fiction,” and therefore not responsible in his treatment of historical fact and his use of historical documents, even though time and place are of crucial importance to Ainsworth. One could hardly regard Ainsworth more incorrectly. A close reading of Ainsworth's historical sources demonstrates that Ainsworth's history is extremely reliable in both generalities and particulars; his alterations, usually minor, serve only to adumbrate his concept of history as cycle. Thus, even though he is a novelist and not a historian, the faithful revelation of the past is central to his work. He examines history carefully in order to present truths about life and in order to demonstrate how history reveals these truths.

XXV. The Secret of Love's Labour's Lost

PMLA ◽  
1924 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 581-611 ◽  
Author(s):  
Austin K. Gray
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
Narrative Form ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
Working Hypothesis ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
Historical Fact ◽  
Love's Labour's Lost ◽  
Definite Statement ◽  
Made In

[In the following paper, for reasons of brevity, a working hypothesis has been presented in narrative form: wherever a definite statement of historical fact has been made in support of a literary theory, the authority has been given in the footnotes. The article aims at elucidating certain problems in Love's Labour's Lost by correlating them with certain matters of historical fact which took place in and about the year 1591. The following points constitute problems in Love's Labour's Lost: (a) date of composition and first performance; (b) The unexpected dénoûment in the postponed marriages; (c) The choice of names for the leading male characters, Navarre, Berowne, etc.; (d) The curious emphasis laid upon the killing of the deer by the Princess; (e) The similarity of the Pageant scene at the close of the play to the Tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe in The Midsummer Night's Dream; (f) The satire on Euphuism and Sonnets and other courtly affectations; (g) The unique observance by Shakespeare of the unities of time and place. The ensuing narrative has been evolved by applying to these problems the following matters of historical fact: (a) Burleigh's attempts, 1589–94, to force Southampton into marriage with his grand-daughter, Elizabeth de Vere, and Southampton's successful evasion of his betrothal; (b) Southampton's flight to France, 1591, to take part in the war in Normandy; (c) The Royal Progress, 1591, to Portsmouth and certain incidents in the entertainment of the Queen at Cowdray House.]

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