The Dutch historiography of the middle of the 19thcentury was a culture of honour. Disputes over the reputations of historical figures were manifold. This article focuses on one controversy specifically that took place in the 1840s. The subject of debate was the 16th-century nobleman Henry of Brederode, his deeds, his character and his morals. The controversy was not only about content, however. Many suppositions about doing history and being a historian that otherwise remain tacit, were made explicit in the controversy (...) – especially concerning archive-based history. First, the participating historians themselves were judged – somewhat like Brederode himself – on the virtuousness, including the epistemic virtuousness, of their behaviour. Second, it was discussed whether archival documents were fit for use in historiography. To some, the use of these personal letters was ethically unjustifiable. Third, the location from which historical knowledge originated, mainly the archive, came under scrutiny. The singularity of the archive made historians relying on archival material prone to attacks on their trustworthiness. (shrink)

An Emotional History. The Affective Dimension of Historical Discourse Resumen: Se trata de indagar en la dimensión afectiva del uso del concepto de historia, así como del concepto mismo. Más allá de la pretensión científica de una historia escrita sine ira et studio, el texto se sitúa en la encrucijada del giro emocional reciente, que ha potenciado la historia de las emociones justo en el momento en que el concepto moderno de historia ha entrado en crisis. Tras un análisis de (...) la dimensión afectiva del trabajo del historiador y de los motivos emocionales que subyacen al concepto moderno e ilustrado de historia, se interroga por la propia historicidad como objeto de deseo y móvil de las acciones humanas. Deseo que se plasma en varias formas comunitarias de emoción, variables en el tiempo. Entre ellas, se sugiere, han dominado últimamente el sentimiento de lo sublime y el duelo. Se propone, en definitiva, un “sentimiento de la historia” como elaboración cultural de la temporalidad.: This essay explores the affective aspects in the use of the concept of history. Although history claims to be written sine ira et studio, the modern notion of history has entered into crisis precisely at the moment when the emotional turn takes place, and the history of emotions becomes mainsteam. After an analysis of the affective dimension of the historian’s work and of the emotional motives underlying the modern, enlightened concept of history, I explore historicity itself as an object of desire and a motive for human actions. This desire is embodied in various communal forms of emotion, variable over time. Among them, it is suggested, the feeling of the sublime and mourning have dominated lately. It is proposed, in short, a “feeling of history” as a cultural elaboration of temporality. Palabras clave: historicidad, historia conceptual, afectividad, Koselleck, comunidad emocional, entusiasmo, sublime. Keywords: historicity, conceptual history, affectivity, Koselleck, emotional community, enthusiasm, sublime. (shrink)

Koopman’s book revolves around the notion of transition, which he proposes is one of the central ideas of the pragmatist tradition but one which had not previously been fully articulated yet nevertheless shapes the pragmatist attitude in philosophy. Transition, according to Koopman, denotes “those temporal structures and historical shapes in virtue of which we get from here to there”. One of the consequences of transitionalism is the understanding of critique and inquiry as historical pro...

This paper considers the problem of a narrative philosophy according to F. W. J. Schelling and narrative logic according to Franklin Ankersmit. Referring to these examples, I ask whether there is any philosophy to narrative at all. First, I discuss Schelling’s views from his unfinished work “The Ages of the World,” as well as his later dialectics of mythology of revelation from the system of the ages of the world. I focus on a dialectics of figurative and speculative order, which (...) is at the core of Schelling’s project to tell philosophy in the form of poetry and demonstrate the origins of Schelling’s narrative philosophy in his early, transcendental thought. Next, I juxtapose my findings with Ankersmit’s analysis of historians’ language. I also consider whether, and how, some of these ideas can be applied in contemporary narrative research. (shrink)

Philosophers' reflections on history have been dominated for decades by two themes: representation and memory. On both of these accounts, historical inquiry is divided by a certain gap from what it seeks to find or wants to know, and its activity is seen by philosophers as that of bridging this gap. Against this background, the concept of experience, in spite of its apparent rootedness in the present, can be revived as a means of thinking about our connection to the past. (...) After examining variants on the concept of experience, with special attention to its temporality, I argue in this essay that experience can be said to furnish a connection to the past that underlies both memory and representation. (shrink)

Історія філософії як філософська дисципліна має двоїсте завдання. Історик філософії мусить шукати факти й опікуватися думками. Дискусії щодо поєднання цих завдань тривають. Мета цієї розвідки – прояснити поняття суб’єкта історико-філософського пізнання, функції та форми його присутності у дослідницьких текстах. Маємо прийняти як вихідний пункт декілька припущень. По-перше, тексти є тим місцем, у якому можна локалізувати такого суб’єкта, оскільки він не збігається з емпіричним суб’єктом. Навпаки, емпіричний суб’єкт здобуває свою ідентичність як дослідник у тексті й через текст. По-друге, дослідницький текст наводить (...) мости між минулим і теперішнім, тобто зобов’язує дослідника не лише висловлювати свої думки, а й чути інші. По-третє, існування інтерпретаторів як соціальної групи спростовує можливість прямого контакту тексту і читача та обіцяє реалізувати цей контакт у дослідницькому тексті. Отже, хоча текст сам по собі не становить винятковий інтерес для дослідника, суб’єкт історико-філософського пізнання може бути реконструйований саме на основі текстів. У процесі реалізації поставленої мети визначено, в чому полягає специфіка історико-філософського пізнання та які вимоги висуває текст до свого читача; з’ясовано значення настроїв і почуттів у історико-філософському пізнанні та особливості, що відрізняють суб’єкта історико-філософського пізнання від інших суб’єктів пізнання. В основу аналізу покладено деякі теоретичні пропозиції І. Ш. Зарка та Ф. Р. Анкерсміта. Свої висновки автор підтверджує коротким порівняльним аналізом двох досліджень філософії XVIII століття. (shrink)

My purpose in the researching and the writing of this thesis has been to investigate, and to try to explain, Frank Ankersmit's curious shift from his well expressed and firmly held narrativist position of "Narrative Logic", to an arguably contradictory, yet passionately held counter belief in the plausibility of a form of direct historical experience - an authentic unmediated relationship with the past. I am, accordingly, presenting here what I believe to be the most adequate explanatory account of/for Ankersmit's intellectual (...) journey. A journey which, in essence, constituted a substitution of his earlier representational, language centred philosophy of history for what might be taken as a new and mystical non-representational theory. This alternative theory of Ankersmit' s, lacking cognitive foundations, works on the basis of sensations, moods, feelings and therefore a consciousness deemed to be received directly from the past itself, and therein - for this thesis - lies its fatal weakness as a historical theory. Belief in the mystical may be all right at some level, if this is what is wanted, but a mystical experience itself cannot produce a historical re-presentation which is the only way that the past can be presented historically. Thus, I argue that Ankersmit's journey from language to experience - the latter phenomenon being more appropriately situated within the field of sociology/social theory and memory studies - is, in the end, a lost historical cause. (shrink)

In times of a felt need to justify the value of the humanities, the need to revisit and re-establish the public relevance of the discipline of history cannot come as a surprise. On the following pages I will argue that this need is unappeasable by scholarly proposals. The much desired revitalization of historical writing lies instead in reconciling ourselves with the dual meaning of the word history, in exploring the necessary interconnection between history understood as the course of events and (...) as historical writing. Despite the general tendency of the last decades to forbid philosophizing about history in the former sense (at least in departments of history and philosophy), I think that to a certain extent we already do so without succumbing to substantive thought. We already have the sprouts of a speculative although only quasi-substantive philosophy of history that nevertheless takes seriously the postwar criticism of the substantive enterprise. In this essay I will first try to outline this quasi-substantive philosophy of history that attests to the historical sensibility of our times; and second, I will try to outline its consequences regarding history as historical writing. Finally, in place of a conclusion I will suggest that historical writing is not as much a contribution to public agendas as it is the very arena in which public life is at stake. (shrink)

This paper (in Finnish) concerns the ontological status of categories of entities. I argue that categories are not be considered as further entities. Rather, it is suffcient for entities belonging to the same category that they are in exactly the same formal ontological relations and have the same general category features.