Idealist philosophy of history. In a previous post I commended W.H. Walsh's approach to the philosophy of history for Walsh's sympathetic effort to understand both traditions in the field, including what is called "speculative" philosophy of history (An Introduction to Philosophy of History ). And Walsh is to be commended as well for his analytical ability to formulate and explicate these positions. This is in fact what we want from good historians of philosophy -- a detailed, text-based explication of the theories of difficult thinkers such as Hegel and Dilthey. So the fact that Walsh offers an extended and nuanced interpretation of the efforts by Hegel, Herder, and Dilthey is to his credit as an exegetical scholar. Walsh's position seems to be ambiguous on this question. To accomplish this task the philosopher must take the results of empirical history as data, but it will not suffice for him merely to reproduce them.
Here is part of Walsh's assessment of the success of Hegel's project: The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations: Philosophy of Science and Its Implications for the Study of World Politics. FOREIGN POLICY Magazine. Visualizing Human Rights Agenda. Crossroads. Law, War, and the History of Time. Mary L. Dudziak, University of Southern California Law School Abstract Assumptions about time are an aspect of the basic architecture of our thinking about law and war. Time is thought to be linear and episodic, moving from one kind of time (peacetime) to another kind of time (wartime) in sequence.
Law is affected by what time it is, with a pendulum swinging from greater government power and lesser rights during wartime, to the opposite in peacetime. Drawing upon works on the history of time, this paper argues that our conception of “wartime” is culturally constructed and historically contingent. This understanding of war and time is also in tension with the practice of war in 20th century U.S. history. The paper turns to World War II, which is thought of as a traditional war, with clear temporal limits. The paper is part of a larger project that places war at the center of 20th century U.S. law and politics, rather than viewing war as something that had an episodic impact. Mary L. What history teaches us about the welfare state.
World History And The Eonic Effect, Fourth Edition. Natural Experiments of History « The Leisure of the Theory Class. I became a fan of Jared Diamond after having read his book “Guns, Germs and Steel” that nicely explain why Europeans came to America and history did not evolve the other way around. His second book, “Collapse”, which explains how attitude to environmental factors affect the survival success of societies only strengthened the bond between us.
So when I saw that he has a third book, “Natural Experiments of History”, I immediately ordered it from Amazon.com. First thing I noticed when I got the book was that Diamond is one of the editors of this book, which collects eight essays written by different authors (one essay was written by Diamond). This fact did not discourage me and I remained hopeful. As my readers know, I do not believe in lab experiments of human behavior. One chapter that was especially interesting contrasts the number of slaves taken from the various regions of Africa during the slave trade, to the level of economic development of that region today. Like this: A People's History of the United States. The Note: This great book should really be read by everyone. It is difficult to describe why it so great because it both teaches and inspires.
You really just have to read it. We think it is so good that it demands to be as accessible as possible. Once you've finished it, we're sure you'll agree. In fact, years ago, we would offer people twenty dollars if they read the book and didn't think it was completely worth their time. Of all the people who took us up on it, no one collected. The disclaimer: This version is made from OCR.