scholarly journals Philosophy of History and History of Philosophy of Science

Author(s):  
Thomas Uebel
Problemata ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 270-281
Author(s):  
Marcos Amatucci

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-79
Author(s):  
Thomas Uebel

Abstract The response given to C.G. Hempel’s well-known challenge by Arthur Danto in his Analytical Philosophy of History of 1965 – that deductive-nomological and narrative explanations are logically compatible yet employ incommensurable schemata – is here investigated from a historical perspective. It is shown that the developmental trajectory that emerges from an analysis of Danto’s previous writings – including not only a forgotten paper of 1958 but also his PhD dissertation of 1952 – contains distinctive step-changes with publications of 1953 and 1956 still prior to that of 1958–59 which enabled his subsequent discovery of narrative sentences. It is also argued that Danto’s developmental trajectory runs contrary to that presumed by some prominent commentators. Analytical History of Philosophy was not the midpoint of his ascent from mainstream philosopher of science to high priest of postmodern aesthetics, but represents a reasoned retreat from his early historical idealism.


1995 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 225-240
Author(s):  
Kenneth Minogue

It is one of Karl Popper's great distinctions that he has an intense—some would say too intense—awareness of the history of philosophy within which he works. He knows not only its patterns, but also its comedies, and sometimes he plays rhetorically against their grain. He knows, for example, that the drive to consistency tends to turn philosophy into compositions of related doctrines, each seeming to involve the others. Religious belief, for example, tends to go with idealism and free will, religious scepticism with materialism and determinism. Popper does not believe in a religion, was for long some kind of a socialist, and takes his bearings from the philosophy of science. Aha! it seems we have located him. Here is a positivist, a materialist, probably a determinist. But of course he denies he is any of these things. Again, like many modern thinkers, he wants to extend scientific method not only to the social sciences but also to history. So far so familiar, until we discover that he regards nature as no less ‘cloudy’ than human societies.


Author(s):  
James Dodd

This chapter sketches the trajectory of Jan Patočka’s philosophical development against the background of the conflicts and crises that marked the history of the twentieth century, and which profoundly affected the Czech philosopher. The relevant period spans from the 1930s, when Patočka studied under Edmund Husserl in Freiburg, to the philosopher’s activities as a dissident in 1970s Czechoslovakia. Particular attention is paid to Patočka’s deep reading of the history of philosophy; the complexities of his appropriation of the phenomenological philosophies of Husserl and Heidegger; and the philosophy of history developed late in his career. The chapter ends with a consideration of Patočka’s influence on contemporary phenomenological philosophy, suggesting that his most promising contribution lies in his challenging engagement with the problem of Europe, above all his call for a post-European philosophical perspective.


2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 360-379
Author(s):  
David Vessey

The key difference between the history of ideas and the history of philosophy is that philosophers always consider their historical studies as potentially contributing to contemporary philosophical practice. Such presentism risks anachronistic readings of texts, but a too narrow focus on the historical context of the text risks limiting its ability to contribute to contemporary philosophizing. The current discussion of the history of philosophy focus entirely on how to understand, and what we can learn from, a philosopher’s claims and arguments. Hans-Georg Gadamer offers a different focus, arguing instead that it is the questions that the text answers that generate insights for contemporary philosophical practice. His focus on questions cuts across the standard ways of thinking about the relation between the history of philosophy and the history of ideas and provides novel answers to some central issues in the philosophy of history, for example how to best articulate a principle of charity.


2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-24
Author(s):  
Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann

Abstract The essay – an elaborated version of my academic farewell speech [Abschiedsvorlesung] – discusses three theses: 1. Histories and history as well as history of philosophy and philosophy of history can only be staged as narratives. “True” stories enact the past and deliver schemes for anticipating the future; insofar history and future constitute the semantics of the present. 2. “Systematic” philosophy analyses the temporal narratives which store the historical experiences and eliminates their temporality in a process of transforming narratives into arguments. The most important step in this transformation consists in isolating the key notions of the narratives and in arranging these key notions in a “timeless” systematic order. 3. History of philosophy and philosophy of history restage, however, the temporal narrative, which systematic philosophy wants to eliminate from philosophy. This operation produces an unsolvable paradox where the claim of timeless truth and that of unescapable temporality are both valid. It throws up questions such as: how can it be possible for philosophical truths to lose their credit? Do timeless truths exist, and if so what do they mean? Do these paradoxes lead to schadenfreude on the part of the historian of philosophy, who knew it all along, or should one see these unsolvable complexities as a chance to enjoy the richness of possibilities which history unfolds? The essay chooses the second alternative.


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