In a Parallel World: An Introduction to Frank Ankersmit’s Philosophy of History

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Tamm ◽  
Eugen Zeleňák
Keyword(s):  
Academic Career ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Historical Experience ◽  
Historical Representation ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Existentialist Philosophy ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThis article proposes to identify the conceptual structure guiding Frank Ankersmit’s philosophy of history. We argue that philosophical analysis of history consists in Ankersmit’s approach of three different levels: 1) the level of the past itself which is the subject of ontology, 2) the level of description of the past that is studied by epistemology, and 3) the level of representation of the past which should be analysed primarily by means of aesthetics. In other words, the realm of history is constituted of three aspects: 1) historical experience, 2) historical research, and 3) historical representation. During his whole academic career, Ankersmit has been interested in the first and the third aspects and has tried deliberately to avoid any serious engagement in epistemology (historical research). Ankersmit’s philosophy of history is built on a few fundamental dichotomies that can be considered as a kind of axioms of his thinking: 1) the distinction between historical research and historical writing, and 2) the distinction between description and historical representation. The article offers a critical discussion of Ankersmit’s two different approaches to the philosophy of history: cognitivist philosophy of history (analysis of historical representation) and existentialist philosophy of history (analysis of historical experience), and concludes by a short overview of the impact and significance of his historical-philosophical work and of his idea of the uniqueness of history.

scholarly journals ФІЛОСОФІЯ ІСТОРІЇ В КОНТЕКСТІ ЛІНГВІСТИЧНОЇ (НАРАТИВНОЇ) ФІЛОСОФСЬКОЇ ТРАДИЦІЇ

2018 ◽  
pp. 5-12
Author(s):  
Н. І. Моісєєва ◽  
С. С. Романова
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Historical Materialism ◽  
Historical Consciousness ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Classical Philosophy

The authors consider the problem of the disciplinary status of linguistic (narrative) philosophy of history. The problem is examined in the context of analysis of its basic assumptions, which have been described in the works of A. Danto and F. R. Ankersmit. This philosophical tradition mainly developed in the first half of the twentieth century as a reaction to the impossibility of empirical verification of the scientific adequacy of the theoretical concepts of the regularities of historical development, which were established within the classic philosophy of history. Rejection of the gnosiological problematics lies on the basis of linguistic (narrative) philosophy of history. Also the notion of a fact is replaced by the notion of interpretation of a fact on the basis of narrative. The study of meanings and values of these narratives is based on language as the ontological Foundation of consciousness.According to A. Danto the scientific failure of the theory (concept) of the historical process lies in the impossibility of assessment by the researcher of the entire length of the process, especially of the stage of completion (the «end of history»). The observer does not know the final result of the whole process. Therefore, the observer can not estimate the value and meaning both of a process as a whole and its individual stages. Thus, the conclusion is that the history as a series of past events cannot be the subject of the philosophy of history. Only the interpretation of history in the philosophical studies and narrative representations can be the subject of the philosophy of history.According to F. G. Ankersmit «past» and «history» by themselves do not have narrative structure. The researcher also doesn’t have a set of rules of language translation of the past into the language of modernity. These rules would allow to compare the historical narrative with the «past».Thus, in the context of linguistic tradition the «philosophy of history» transforms into the «theory of historical narrative». This theory only logically analyzes the existing historiographical narrative. In fact, this position does not replace the basic methodological approach of classical philosophy of history to the study of reality (a theory based on the uncertainty of the outcome of the process). Only the subject of study is changed: the historical process is replaced by a historical narrative (not the source of the study of history but its interpretation).This approach can be used for the formation of historical consciousness, but it is unsuitable for real historical research. At the same time in the frames of classical philosophy of history a series of methodologies have been recently created. These methodologies allow to use empirical research methods and build it on the basis of concepts. These concepts find a complete confirmation with the help of an independent group of historical sources. So, today, as a result of repeated empirical evidence the concepts of cliometrics, revolutionary crises, and historical development as a result of adaptation of society to changing conditions of existence are finally created. These concepts were developed on the basis of the methodology of historical materialism. At the same time a linguistic (narrative) philosophical tradition only explains the basic foundation of own methodology and criticizes the methods of the opponents. Predictive capability of the methodology of narrative philosophy of history doesn’t enable to adequately use it in a real historical research, although this methodology has been successfully used for the formation of a historical consciousness, including professional surrounding. Therefore, at the present stage of development of the philosophy of history, linguistic tradition as the methodology of the research is much less promising than the methods developed on the basis of classical historical materialism.

New Agendas for Special Education Policy: What the National Reports Haven't Said

1987 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 295-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marleen Pugach ◽  
Mara Sapon-Shevin
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Education Policy ◽  
Educational Reform ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Special Education Policy ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

The calls for educational reform that have dominated the professional and lay literature for the past few years have been decidedly silent in discussing the role of special education either as a contributor or a solution to the problems being raised. As an introduction to this “Special Focus” on the relationship between general educational reform and special education, this article summarizes some of the more prominent reports with regard to their treatment (and nontreatment) of special education. The impact of proposed reforms for the conceptualization and operation of special education is the subject of the five articles that follow.

The State of the Art in Management Education Applicable to Aerospace Activities

1967 ◽  
Vol 71 (677) ◽  
pp. 344-348
Author(s):  
J. V. Connolly
Keyword(s):  
Management Education ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Aerospace Industry ◽  
List Type ◽  
Industrial Training ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Economic Necessity ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

During the past two years, there has been a sharp acceleration to the interest which industry has displayed in the subject of management education. This can be attributed to these factors: —(a) A more widespread realisation of the gap developing between the UK and a number of foreign economies, as manifested by diverging rates of the major economic indicators.(b) The attainment of top-management responsibilities by a younger generation of managers, many of whom had been given some earlier training and who were more conscious of its value than the incumbents of the job from earlier generations.(c) The publication of the Franks, Robbins and (in the aerospace industry) the Plowden reports.(d) The impact of the Industrial Training Boards making it manifest, in terms of serious levies, that training was an economic necessity and therefore must be investigated thoroughly.Notwithstanding the widespread awakening of interest, it is very belated and sets numerous problems. The problems are in two areas—scale and quality.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) after twenty years

1990 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 280-306 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nova Scotia ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
British History ◽  
Arithmetical Property ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Long Life ◽  
The Many

1990 marks the vicesenary of the death of Bertrand Russell, in his 98th year; and this arithmetical property is sufficient reason to review the historical research that has been published on his life and work during the past 20 years. During his long life he had already become the subject of historical research in many of his activities; but this interest accelerated considerably around the time of his death because in the mid 1960s he had decided to sell the bulk of his manuscripts, to raise money to finance his current projects. One of these was the series of conferences financed by the Canadian industrialist Cyrus Eaton, which began at his birthplace of Pugwash, in Nova Scotia. An alumnus of McMaster University at Hamilton, Ontario, Eaton announced that he would put forward a considerable sum of his own money if the papers went to McMaster. Some deft work by the librarian there secured the rest of the required capital, and the papers were purchased in 1968. Thus was created the ‘Bertrand Russell Archives’, as Russell insisted it be called, rejecting the original appellation of ‘Archive’; it is a major resource for British history of Russell’s time, and for the many other concerns in which he was involved. Soon after its launch in 1972, the first Russell conference at McMaster took place, to commemorate the centenary of his birth; its proceedings were published as a book four years later.

Fuelling the Dragon: China's Rise and Its Energy and Resources Extraction in Africa

2009 ◽  
Vol 199 ◽  
pp. 585-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenran Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Development Process ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Chinese Foreign Policy ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
African Countries ◽  
The Past ◽  
Business Operations ◽  
Extensive Field ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Impact

AbstractChina's rapidly expanding role in Africa as an energy and resource extractor reveals much of the dynamics and complexities of its growing ties with the continent. Rather than studying the subject in the framework of bilateral interactions, as most existing literature does, this article explores the impact of China's domestic development process on the behaviour of Chinese foreign policy and business operations in Africa. Based on the author's extensive field research in Africa and China, the article argues that much of what the Chinese government, Chinese companies and individual entrepreneurs are doing today in Africa is an externalization of China's own modernization experiences in the past three decades. China's interactions with African countries are reflective of its own development contradictions, and major patterns of Chinese behavour in Africa can be attributed to complex motivations and objectives of the actors involved.

scholarly journals Mobilizing Data from Taxonomic Literature for an Iconic Species (Dinosauria, Theropoda, Tyrannosaurus rex)

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Miller ◽  
Yanell Braumuller ◽  
Puneet Kishor ◽  
David Shorthouse ◽  
Mariya Dimitrova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Biodiversity Information Facility ◽  
Museum Exhibits ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Biodiversity Knowledge ◽  
Informatics Infrastructure ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Biodiversity Information ◽  
Occurrence Records

A vast amount of biodiversity data is reported in the primary taxonomic literature. In the past, we have demonstrated the use of semantic enhancement to extract data from taxonomic literature and make it available to a network of databases (Miller et al. 2015). For technical reasons, semantic enhancement of taxonomic literature is most efficient when customized according to the format of a particular journal. This journal-based approach captures and disseminates data on whatever taxa happen to be published therein. But if we want to extract all treatments on a particular taxon of interest, these are likely to be spread across multiple journals. Fortunately, the GoldenGATE Imagine document editor (Sautter 2019) is flexible enough to parse most taxonomic literature. Tyrannosaurus rex is an iconic dinosaur with broad public appeal, as well as the subject of more than a century of scholarship. The Naturalis Biodiversity Center recently acquired a specimen that has become a major attraction in the public exhibit space. For most species on earth, the primary taxonomic literature contains nearly everything that is known about it. Every described species on earth is the subject of one or more taxonomic treatments. A taxon-based approach to semantic enhancement can mobilize all this knowledge using the network of databases and resources that comprise the modern biodiversity informatics infrastructure. When a particular species is of special interest, a taxon-based approach to semantic enhancement can be a powerful tool for scholarship and communication. In light of this, we resolved to semantically enhance all taxonomic treatments on T. rex. Our objective was to make these treatments and associated data available for the broad range of stakeholders who might have an interest in this animal, including professional paleontologists, the curious public, and museum exhibits and public communications personnel. Among the routine parsing and data sharing activities in the Plazi workflow (Agosti and Egloff 2009), taxonomic treatments, as well as cited figures, are deposited in the Biodiversity Literature Repository (BLR), and occurrence records are shared with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Treatment citations were enhanced with hyperlinks to the cited treatment on TreatmentBank, and specimen citations were linked to their entries on public facing collections databases. We used the OpenBiodiv biodiversity knowledge graph (Senderov et al. 2017) to discover other taxa mentioned together with T. rex, and to create a timeline of T. rex research to evaluate the impact of individual researchers and specimen repositories to T. rex research. We contributed treatment links to WikiData, and queried WikiData to discover identifiers to different platforms holding data about T. rex. We used bloodhound-tracker.net to disambiguate human agents, like collectors, identifiers, and authors. We evaluate the adequacy of the fields currently available to extract data from taxonomic treatments, and make recommendations for future standards.

scholarly journals Life of Saint Nikephoros of Sebaze as an Illustration of the Perception of the Iconoclastic Era by the Byzantines in Later Times (Including Russian Translation of the Life)

2020 ◽  
pp. 284-296
Author(s):  
Tatyana Senina
Keyword(s):  
Russian Translation ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Philosophical Hermeneutics ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
The Past ◽  
Imperial Palace ◽  
Individual Traits ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Church

Introduction. This work is concerned with the perception of the iconoclastic era in the Life of St. Nikephoros of Sebaze preserved in the form of enkomion written by an anonymous author presumably in the mid 10th century, and to clarify some details of Nikephoros’ biography. Methods. Source research and analysis, philosophical hermeneutics, comparative textological and historical research are the methods employed in this work. Sources on the subject include the edition of the Life of St. Nikephoros by F. Halkin, Lives of St. Patriarch Methodios, St. Nicetas of Medikion and St. Makarios of Pelekete, the Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor. Analysis. The life of St. Nikephoros written in the 10th century by a monk of the monastery of Sebaze illustrates how the iconoclastic era was seen by the next generations who no longer found living witnesses of those times. The hagiographer knows almost nothing certain about his hero, except that he was a monk, suffered for icons in the epoch of the second iconoclasm, and founded a monastery. For ordinary monks in the 10th century, the iconoclastic heresy was associated with the names of emperors Leo III, Constantine V and Leo V, which testifies to the success of the myth created by iconodules in the 9th century that the iconoclastic heresy, unlike the others, was not born in the church environment, but appeared in the imperial palace and was implanted by the authorities without much support from believers. Silence about the last iconoclast emperor Theophilos can be presumably attributed to the success of his posthumous rehabilitation. The past is completely mythologized in the Life: all bishops, priests and monks ardently struggled for their faith, enduring torment and hardship; nothing is said about the Orthodox believers who had fallen into heresy. The hero of the Life itself represented a composite character of a Christian ascetic and confessor of iconoduly completely devoid of individual traits. Results. The analysis of the life shows that by the 10th century the iconoclastic era began to be perceived by believers – at least, by ordinary monks – as the time of epic exploits, and the knowledge of historical events became fragmentary and was based on myths and legends distributed in the church environment rather than real facts. Appendix. The article is accompanied by Russian translation of the Life of St. Nikephoros of Sebaze with a scientific commentary.

scholarly journals A Review of Embedded Systems Education in the Arduino Age: Lessons Learned and Future Directions

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed El-Abd
Keyword(s):  
Embedded Systems ◽  
Engineering Education ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Research Directions ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Market Trends ◽  
The Impact

In this paper, the subject of embedded systems education in the Arduino age is examined. Arduino is an open-source microcontroller platform that has been widely popular in the past decade among hobbyists and academics. Arduino is increasingly being adopted in courses that span different disciplines in schools and universities. As a result, numerous papers are being published every year in different engineering education conferences and journals reporting the integration of Arduino in teaching. In this work, the impact of Arduino on embedded systems education is investigated. First, challenges facing embedded systems education are identified from the literature. Second, different Arduino teaching integration methodologies reported in the literature are surveyed and analyzed. Third, the question whether Arduino successfully addresses embedded education challenges or not is discussed taking both surveyed findings and recent market trends into consideration. Finally, a number of open-ended research directions are proposed.

Gender in the History of Transportation Services: A Historiographical Perspective

2007 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 545-562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Developing Economies ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Service Industries ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Concerted Effort ◽  
Transportation Services ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cheap Labor ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact

Transportation is one of the service industries in which women are now active participants in both mature and developing economies. Traditionally dominated by male entrepreneurs and workers, transportation in westernized nations has had to accommodate the demands of women with the passage of legislation imposing conditions of equality. The global search for cheap labor is another factor that has propelled women into the fields of international and local travel, tourism, and transportation. Although businesses in recent years have placed a premium on human mobility, rapid movement of goods, and instant communication, there has been little historical research that connects the past with these developments, nor has there been a concerted effort to under-stand the impact of gender on the shifts in direction.

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