Complete summary of Rethinking History 2 of week 1-8 with notes of all lectures, classes and readings. It might contain some Dutch explanations in case it needed some clarification.
What are the humanities?
- The study of human behavior and interaction
- Fields of study that primarily focus on meaning, like historical meaning and linguistic.
→ A set of academic disciplines. The common denominator in these subjects is that it is
about human sciences, human actions and human ideas → language is also common
denominator
What is history?
History derived from greek istoria: results of an inquiry (i.e., written histories)
- meant doing research into what people did in the past all the way up into the present
- Herodotus: history was also what happened yesterday, not only of what happened
millions of years ago
- meant research
Res Gestae: human deeds → things that people have done. It is about what people did, not
about nature
Historia rerum gestarum: the narrative account of human actions → the concept they used in
order to explain the research about what people did → it is a story about what people did.
Philosophy of History
It is a meta-reflection on the past and study of the past
Philosophy of history = historical theory, theory of history
Philosophy of history = the philosophy of science of historiography, it shared its philosophical
frame of reference with other humanities
→ tries to uncover the essence of history through your study of the past (meta-reflection of
res gestae)
→ questions about the essence of the past and questions about how we should study the
past
,Philosophical terminology
Ontology: (ontos = being)
Reflection on reality/being → about historical existence
Question: What is the past? How does it relate to our being?
Epistemology: (episteme = knowledge)
How can true knowledge be obtained?
Question: How can we know about the past? How can we explain the course of the events?
Methodology
Rules about scientific methods that enable a rational and controlled learning process,
producing adequate knowledge
Question: What are primary sources? How should we study them?
Ethical questions: How to discuss perpetrators and victims? How to deal with your own
bias? How to deal with plagiarism?
Speculative vs. analytical philosophy of history
1. Speculative philosophy of history: substantial philosophy of history
- Speculative history ask: what is the meaning of history? (not necessary
historians, also philosophers)
- Studies history meaning res gestae: tries to uncover the essence of the
historical process
2. analytical philosophy of history: critical philosophy of history.
- ask questions such as: can we know the meaning of the past?
- twofold meaning:
1. the name of the branch in Anglo-American history
2. at the same time, within the philosophy of history it also has a broader
meaning
- studies history in meaning of historia rerum gestarum: studies our
study/understanding of the past.
- often skeptical of speculative history: how can we know the essence of the
past?
Speculative
Speculations about the things that happened (res gestae), philosophers and historians look
for the hidden structures and mechanics behind the unfolding events
● Historical process of pattened, unfolds in phases/periods
● There is a ‘motor’ that keeps history going
● The process of history has a goal
Note: speculative is also called substantial philosophy of history
Old-fashioned but there are arguments to make it popular again (climate change) → try to
find patterns that unfolds in certain periodization
- very often has a goal, history moves towards a certain end
Analytical
,Studies the stories/narratives about the past and other historical representations (historia
rerum gestarum)
● choice of sources
● methods of interpreting sources
● argumentation
Note: analytical is also called critical philosophy of history
How do we choose selecting sources? How do we make or should we make certain
conclusions? What is truth?
Week 3: 19th century historicism (historical methodology: what makes historiography a
science?)
Week 4: mid-20th British tradition of analytical philosophy: what is proper historical
knowledge, what is historical explanation?
Week 5: German hermeneutics since 1800: what is historical interpretation? How do we
interpret the past?
Week 6: Postmodernism of 1980s and 1990s: language is not a neutral medium of
transmitting historical knowledge
Week 7: Focus on the postcolonial critique of Western historical discourses since the late
1970s
Week 8: Focus on posthumanism: contemporary attempts to theorize history as more than
an account of the course of human action
History
Philosophy of history assumes that history is a linear process driven by mankind
- we subconsciously assume that history is a process, apparently we imagine history
to be some kind of line, a process of development
Cyclical vs. Linear
Cyclical: believed there were certain patterns → humans were bound to make certain errors
over and over again → not about physical recurrence, but timeless essence of human nature
Mythology and History
Myths are the oldest way of explaining human origin and destiny
Part of oral traditions: myths only survived in fragmented form in the mythologies of literary
cultures.
- tried to explain the world in a sense in where the Gods were not depicted to life in a
different realm, but in the same world
Increased criticism in the Axial Age (8th-3rd century BC) → Myths became more
of moral lessons
- increased rationalization in this period
- end of the age of mythology: logos vs. mythos, questioning of tradition.
- myths still important but as moral lessons, not meaningful explanations
- Critical questioning of authority of tradition
- Rise of the notion of a transcendental God instead of a world filled with gods and
demons
Classical historiography
, Ancient Greeks: “history” referred to the (written report of) an inquiry into human affairs (past
and present)
These histories often called cyclical → show recurring patterns of eros and serve as
moral lessons
The belief in progress → it is meaningless to go back in the past, because people
had different contexts etc. → it is a lesson for eternity
Linearity and Christian eschatology
Eschatology = beliefs concerning the final events of the world and of mankind
Teleology = belief in a particular goal (telos) in history
(Thought of time as something that would go into eternity)
Initially early Christians believed that the end times would occur in their own
lifetime. By the 3rd century this belief was no longer tenable → rise of
eschatology
St. Augustine:
● Events in human & natural world inferior shadows or reflections of a higher, divine
reality
● Divine will (providence) lay behind major events
Renaissance: antiquity as a model and example for humanistic scholars
Antiquity (oudheid) had been example and standard concerning philosophy, state
organization, building and techniques
Renaissance humanist values:
Translatio: paraphrasing or translating classical texts in vernacular language, or copying art
Imitatio: imitating the style of an author or artist to create a new piece of art in such a way
that the reader still recognized the source of inspiration
Aemulatio: equalling or excelling the works of the Ancients (combining Christian elements
with classical sources)
Enlightenment
Philosophical preconditions:
● Confidence in timeless, universal truth
● Knowledge based on reason
● Progress in knowledge
Researcher as a subject positied vis a vis a knowable reality (object)
Subject is western, but timeless center of thought
Language is supposed to be neutral: reality can be conveyed in language.
18th century Philosophical History
Historiography emancipates from rhetoric and theology and becomes philosophy;
secularization of worldview
- Universal history as the history of moral development (influence natural law theory)
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