Representation

The Birth of Historical Reality from the Death of the Past
Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-0-231-21591-6
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 328 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 229 mm x 151 mm, Gewicht: 474 g

Reihe: Columbia Themes in Philosophy

What makes historical writing distinctive? In Representation, Franklin Rudolf Ankersmit—the preeminent figure in the philosophy of history today—offers a deeply original way of understanding the practice of historical writing and a powerful vindication of history as an empirical discipline. Based on a new reading of the philosophy of G. W. Leibniz, Ankersmit constructs a rigorous framework for understanding the nature of historical argument.

Representation argues that while previous states of affairs have left evidence that can be used to formulate true statements, the past itself is irretrievably lost. A condition of historical writing is that the past as such does not exist. Historical texts are best understood as complex signs that mutually criticize one another to compose a historical reality fundamentally distinct from common-sense notions of the past.

Representation casts an entirely new light on fundamental concepts such as historical truth, historical debate, and historical rationality. Cogent, forceful, and provocative, this book is the most ambitious work in the philosophy of history in many years.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ankersmit, Franklin Rudolf

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften Sprachphilosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein Historiographie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface
Introduction. A New Vindication of Historicism
1. Premises and Axioms
2. Leibniz and Historical Representation: The Basics
3. Metaphysics, Individuals, Models, and the PBF
4. Signs, Semantics, Meaning, and Relational Statements
5. Historical Knowledge, Facts, Arguments, Maxima and Minima
Conclusion: Nontrivial Circularity
Epilogue. Intensionalism Versus Extensionalism: The Historical Period (Leibniz) and Its Enemies (Davidson)
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Franklin Rudolf Ankersmit is professor emeritus of intellectual history and historical theory at the University of Groningen. The author of numerous books, he founded the Journal of the Philosophy of History.