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History

History
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.[1] History (from Greek ἱστορία, historia, meaning "inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation")[2] is the study of the past, particularly how it relates to humans.[3][4] It is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events. Scholars who write about history are called historians. Events occurring prior to written record are considered prehistory. History can also refer to the academic discipline which uses a narrative to examine and analyse a sequence of past events, and objectively determine the patterns of cause and effect that determine them.[5][6] Historians sometimes debate the nature of history and its usefulness by discussing the study of the discipline as an end in itself and as a way of providing "perspective" on the problems of the present.[5][7][8][9] Etymology Description Historiography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History

Related:  The problems with philosophy

Timeline Prehistory For events dating from the formation of the planet to the rise of modern humans see: Timeline of natural historyFor events dating from the first appearance of Homo sapiens to before the invention of writing see: Timeline of human prehistory These timelines of world history detail recorded events since the creation of writing roughly 5000 years ago (which marks the beginning of history) to the present day. For events from c. 3500 BC to c. 500 AD see: Timeline of ancient historyFor events from c. 500 to 1499, see: Timeline of the Middle AgesFor events from 1500 to 1900, see: Timeline of early modern historyFor events since 1901, see: Timeline of modern history Economic history Development as a separate field[edit] Treating economic history as a discrete academic discipline has been a contentious issue for many years. Academics at the London School of Economics and the University of Cambridge had numerous disputes over the separation of economics and economic history in the interwar era. Cambridge economists believed that pure economics involved a component of economic history and that the two were inseparably entangled. Those at the LSE believed that economic history warranted its own courses, research agenda and academic chair separated from mainstream economics. In the initial period of the subject's development, the LSE position of separating economic history from economics won out.

History of the world World population[1] from 10,000 BCE to 2,000 CE. The vertical (population) scale is logarithmic. The history of the world is the history of humanity, beginning with the Paleolithic Era. Distinct from the history of the Earth (which includes early geologic history and prehuman biological eras), world history comprises the study of archaeological and written records, from ancient times on. Dilemma of determinism The dilemma of determinism or standard argument against free will is an argument that there exists a dilemma between determinism and its negation, indeterminism, in that both are purported to undermine the possibility of free will.[citation needed] The argument for the dilemma combines two arguments about the relationship between the concepts of free will and determinism. One argument claims that strict determination of our actions would mean they were completely necessitated by past events beyond our present control, and that this would be logically incompatible with the concept of free will. The other argument claims that any indetermination of our actions would merely mean they were at least partly random, offering no more control, and that this would also be logically incompatible with the concept of free will.

List of timelines From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This is a list of timelines currently on Wikipedia. §Types[edit] §General timelines[edit] §History[edit] §Arts[edit] History of capitalism Max Weber's model of capitalist development. The history of capitalism can be traced back to early forms of merchant capitalism practiced in Western Europe during the Middle Ages.[1] It began to develop into its modern form during the Early Modern period in the Protestant countries of North-Western Europe, especially the Netherlands and England. Traders in Amsterdam and London created the first chartered joint-stock companies driving up commerce and trade, and the first stock exchanges and banking and insurance institutions were established.[2]

Celts Diachronic distribution of Celtic peoples: core Hallstatt territory, by the 6th century BC maximal Celtic expansion, by 275 BC Lusitanian area of Iberia where Celtic presence is uncertain The Celts (/ˈkɛlts/, occasionally /ˈsɛlts/, see pronunciation of Celtic) or Kelts were an ethnolinguistic group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Medieval Europe who spoke Celtic languages and had a similar culture,[1] although the relationship between the ethnic, linguistic and cultural elements remains uncertain and controversial. The earliest undisputed direct examples of a Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions, beginning in the 6th century BC.[6] Continental Celtic languages are attested almost exclusively through inscriptions and place-names.

Incompatibilism Incompatiblists agree that determinism leaves no room for free will. As a result, they reject one or both. Incompatibilism is the view that a deterministic universe is completely at odds with the notion that people have a free will; that there is a dichotomy between determinism and free will where philosophers must choose one or the other. This view is pursued in at least three ways: libertarians deny that the universe is deterministic, the hard determinists deny that any free will exists, and pessimistic incompatibilists (hard indeterminists) deny both that the universe is determined and that free will exists. Some of these incompatibilistic views have more trouble than the others in dealing with the standard argument against free will. Incompatiblism is contrasted with compatibilism, which rejects the determinism/free will dichotomy.

Compatibilism Compatibilism (or soft determinism) is the belief that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that it is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent.[1] Compatibilists believe freedom can be present or absent in situations for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics. For instance, courts of law make judgments about whether individuals are acting under their own free will under certain circumstances without bringing in metaphysics. Similarly, political liberty is a non-metaphysical concept.[2] Likewise, compatibilists define free will as freedom to act according to one's determined motives without arbitrary hindrance from other individuals or institutions. In contrast, the incompatibilist positions are concerned with a sort of "metaphysically free will", which compatibilists claim has never been coherently defined.[citation needed] History[edit]

Determinism Determinism Determinism is the philosophical idea that every event or state of affairs, including every human decision and action, is the inevitable and necessary consequence of antecedent states of affairs. More strictly, determinism should be distinguished from pre-determinism, the idea that the entire past (as well as the future) was determined at the origin of the universe. Nor should determinism be confused with determination, the idea that events (including human actions) can be adequately determined by immediately prior events (such as an agent's reasons, motives, desires), without being pre-determined back to before the agent's birth or even back to the origin of the universe. Since modern quantum physics shows that the universe is indeterministic, with profound effects on microscopic processes at the atomic scale, we will find it valuable to distinguish pre-determinism from the adequate determinism that we have in the real world. We call this "soft" causality.

Determinism Determinism is the philosophical position that for every event, including human action, there exist conditions that could cause no other event. "There are many determinisms, depending upon what pre-conditions are considered to be determinative of an event."[1] Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have sprung from diverse and sometimes overlapping motives and considerations. Some forms of determinism can be empirically tested with ideas from physics and the philosophy of physics. The opposite of determinism is some kind of indeterminism (otherwise called nondeterminism).

Free will Though it is a commonly held intuition that we have free will,[3] it has been widely debated throughout history not only whether that is true, but even how to define the concept of free will.[4] How exactly must the will be free, what exactly must the will be free from, in order for us to have free will? Historically, the constraint of dominant concern has been determinism of some variety (such as logical, nomological, or theological), so the two most prominent common positions are named incompatibilist or compatibilist for the relation they hold to exist between free will and determinism. In Western philosophy[edit] The underlying issue is: Do we have some control over our actions, and if so, what sort of control, and to what extent? These questions predate the early Greek stoics (for example, Chrysippus), and some modern philosophers lament the lack of progress over all these millennia.[11][12]

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