Experience as the Invisible Drive of Historical Writing

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoltán Boldizsár Simon
Keyword(s):  
Dual Task ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Expiration Date ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Historical Experience ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Current State ◽  
Big Ideas ◽  
Point Of No Return ◽  
Fruitful Cooperation

Abstract From time to time our tiny intellectual worlds are simultaneously shaken by big ideas – ideas that, however big they are, have their expiration-date. Such is the case with the idea of the impossibility to find life outside language. In this essay, I picture what I think is the current state of the philosophy of history after the so-called linguistic turn and what I think the direction is where the philosophy of history might be headed by taking into account the important job done by linguistic theories. I regard the abandonment of epistemology and the arrival to the realm of aesthetics as a point of no return, and conclude that a new philosophy of history has to have an aesthetic character. However, due to the omnipotence of language I also detect a narrow constructive potential in linguistic theories and argue that a new philosophy of history has to have the dual task of searching for life outside language while remaining in the realm of aesthetics. As a next step, I identify Frank Ankersmit’s notion of an individual historical experience as a move towards the fulfillment of this dual task. Finally, because Ankersmit’s experience remains mute, in the second half of the essay I attempt to present an outline of the possibility of a fruitful cooperation between the philosophy of history and phenomenology. More precisely, I am trying to synchronize Ankersmit’s notion of an individual historical experience with László Tengelyi’s phenomenological experiments with experience and let Tengelyi speak where Ankersmit “stops talking”. As a result, with the help of Tengelyi, an aperture can be found in language through which experience might worm its way. Due to this fissure, experience might be regarded as an invisible driving force behind linguistic expressions, and thus behind historical writing.

scholarly journals A.J. TOYNBEE: HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE AND COTEMPORANEITY

2021 ◽  
pp. 171-185
Author(s):  
Карина Викторовна Ануфриева
Keyword(s):  
Historical Writing ◽  
Historical Experience ◽  
World Community ◽  
Current State ◽  
The World ◽  
Collective Experience ◽  
The Relationship

Рассматривается интерпретация А.Д. Тойнби взаимосвязи исторического опыта и современности. Показано, что видение исторического опыта этим автором обосновывается на базе антропологии, позволяющей обосновать его эпистемологические характеристики. Рассмотрены истоки концепции исторического опыта Тойнби в воззрениях А. Бергсона, П. Тейяра де Шардена и других авторов. Взгляды Тойнби на живой индивидуальный и коллективный опыт, их соотношение с историописанием сопоставлены с идеями Ф. Анкерсмита и других философов. В свете подхода Тойнби к историческому опыту рассмотрена его деятельность как историка и аналитика современного состояния мирового сообщества. The article is focused on A.J. Toynbee's interpretation of the relationship between historical experience and contemporaneity. It reveals that the vision of historical experience by this author is justified on the basis of anthropology, which allows to substantiate its epistemological characteristics. The sources of Toynbee's views on historical experience in the heritage of A. Bergson, P. Teilhard de Chardin, and other authors are considered. Toynbee's views on live individual and collective experience, as well as their correlation with historical writing are compared to the ideas of F. Ankersmit, and other philosophers. In the light of Toynbee's approach to historical experience, his activity as a historian and analyst of the current state of the world community is considered.

Socialism and the Flow of  Time in Modernity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Wright
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Doctoral Thesis ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Flow Of Time

This chapter asks wider questions about the flow of time as it was explored in this historical writing. It focuses on Jaurès’ philosophy of history, initially through a brief discussion of his doctoral thesis and the essay entitled ‘Le bilan social du XIXème siècle’ that he provided at the end of the Histoire socialiste, then through the work of three of his collaborators, Gabriel Deville, Eugène Fournière, and Georges Renard. One of the most important challenges for socialists in the early twentieth century was to understand the damage and division caused by revolution, while not losing the transformative mission of their socialism. With these elements established, the chapter returns to Jaurès, and in particular the long study of nineteenth-century society in chapter 10 of L’Armée nouvelle. Jaurès advanced an original vision of the nineteenth century and its meaning for the socialist present.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS: REMEMBERING THE GREAT WAR BETWEEN TRUTH AND REENACTMENT

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 119-140
Author(s):  
Jay Winter
Keyword(s):  
Performing Arts ◽  
Living History ◽  
Great War ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Unfinished Business ◽  
Historical Experience ◽  
Historical Reenactment ◽  
The World ◽  
The Great War

AbstractThis paper analyses the phenomenon of historical reenactment of Great War battles as an effort to create what is termed ‘living history’. Thousands of people all over the world have participated in such reenactments, and their number increased significantly during the period surrounding the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War. Through a comparison with representations of war in historical writing, in museums and in the performing arts, I examine the claim of reenactors that they can enter into historical experience. I criticise this claim, and show how distant it is from those who do not claim to relive history but (more modestly) to represent it. In their search for ‘living history’, reenactors make two major errors. They strip war of its political content, and they sanitise and trivialise combat.

Metaphilosophical metamorphoses of analytic philosophy of language

Semiotica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tadeusz Szubka
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
First Century ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Current State ◽  
First Philosophy ◽  
New Millennium

Abstract The paper begins with an account of the emergence of analytic philosophy of language in the twentieth century in the context of the development of logic and the linguistic turn. Subsequently, it describes two examples of analytic philosophy of language in its heyday when the discipline was conceived as first philosophy. Finally, it provides, by way of conclusion, a succinct outline of the current state of philosophy of language, marked by modesty and fragmentation. It is claimed that even if one retains optimism about the prospects of philosophy of language in the first century of the new millennium, it would be unreasonable to disagree with the opinion that the present-day philosophy of language is a highly specialized and diversified discipline and no longer so central for philosophical enterprise as it used to be.

Jerzy Topolski’s Marxist Anthropocentrism

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-377
Author(s):  
Ewa Domańska ◽  
Paul Vickers
Keyword(s):  
Historical Materialism ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Marxist Theory ◽  
Collective Agency ◽  
Future Developments ◽  
The Past ◽  
Current State ◽  
The World ◽  
Separate Discipline

Abstract In this article I demonstrate that the ideas outlined in Jerzy Topolski’s Methodology of History (Polish 1968, English translation 1976) could not only offer a reference point for and indeed enrich ongoing debates in the philosophy of history, but also help to set directions for future developments in the field. To support my argument, I focus on two themes addressed in Topolski’s work: 1) the understanding of the methodology of history as a separate discipline and its role both in defending the autonomy of history and in creating an integrated knowledge of the past, which I read here through the lens of the current merging of the humanities and natural sciences; and 2) the role of a Marxist anthropocentrism based on the notion of humans as the creators of history, which I consider here in the context of the ongoing critique of anthropocentrism. I point to the value of continuing to use concepts drawn from Marxist vocabulary, such as alienation, emancipation, exploitation and overdetermination, for interpreting the current state of the world and humanity. I stress that Marxist anthropocentrism, with its support for individual and collective agency, remains crucial to the creation of emancipatory theories and visions of the future, even if it has faced criticism for its Eurocentrism and might seem rather familiar and predictable when viewed in the context of the contemporary humanities. Nevertheless, new manifestations of Marxist theory, in the form of posthumanist Marxism and an interspecies historical materialism that transcends anthropocentrism, might play an important role in redefining the humanities and humanity, including its functions and tasks within human and multispecies communities.

What's Foucault Got to Do with It? History, Theory, and Becoming Subjected

2011 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald E. Butchart
Keyword(s):  
History Of Education ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Historical Inquiry ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
History Of

The three essays before us constitute an indictment of the field of the history of education for its neglect of theory. Read linearly, from the Introduction through Coloma, the indictment becomes increasingly strident, moving from a gentle call for greater consideration of the potential contributions of theory for historical writing to a condemnation of the field for its parochial “indifference, imperviousness, and perhaps even resistance” to theory. As one practitioner within the field who shares with these authors a keen relish for theory and philosophy of history, I regret that the challenge to the field to attend more carefully to the possibilities of theory has been presented in exactly this form. My regret flows from the indictment's incoherent form, from its misleading evidentiary base, from its curious move from a broad embrace of multiple theoretical stances to a narrow, crabbed insistence on only one deeply problematic theory as acceptable evidence of the field's theoretical sophistication, and from the stunning effort in the last essay to appropriate and deploy language as power in order to marginalize and exclude from historical inquiry all but the narrowest range of discourse traditions. I will take up each of those issues in turn.

Danto's Philosophy of History in Retrospective

2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Ankersmit
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Post War ◽  
Historical Thought

AbstractDanto's Analytical Philosopy of History is one of the undisputed classics of post-war reflection on the nature of historical writing. Upon its publication in 1965 it was immediately recognized to be a major contribution to contemporary historical thought. Strangely enough, however, little effort was made by philosophers of history to penetrate into the depth of Danto's argument. The explanation is, perhaps, that there was more than a hint of historicism in Danto's conception of historical writing and for which philosophers of history at that time were not yet prepared. This explanation is all the more plausible since German philosophers of history – most notably Hans Michael Baumgartner – were far more sensitive to the book's message than their Anglo-Saxon colleagues. The result is, however, that the book still awaits its proper reception in contemporary philosophy of history.

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