Philosophy of History

Hence arises the fact that everything better struggles through only with difficulty, becomes effective, or meets with a hearing, but the absurd and perverse in the realm of thought, the dull and tasteless in the sphere of art, and the wicked and fraudulent in the sphere of action, really assert a supremacy that is disturbed only by brief interruptions.

Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume I, §59, p. 324 [Dover Publications, 1966, E.F.J. Payne translation]

Essays

...and thus we can understand how the work of War, although so plain and simple in its effects, can never be conducted with distinguished success by people without distinguished powers of the understanding.

Carl von Clausewitz, On War [Penguin Classics, 1968, 1982, p. 155]

Should a traveller, returning from a far country, bring us an account of men, wholly different from any with whom we were ever acquainted; men, who were entirely divested of avarice, ambition, or revenge; who knew no pleasure but friendship, generosity, and public spirit; we should immediately, from these circumstances, detect the falsehood, and prove him a liar, with the same certainty as if he had stuffed his narration with stories of centaurs and dragons, miracles and prodigies. And if we would explode any forgery in history, we cannot make use of a more convincing argument, than to prove, that the actions ascribed to any person are directly contrary to the course of nature, and that no human motives, in such circumstances, could ever induce him to such a conduct.

David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Sect. VIII, Part I, p. 65 [Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1972, L.A. Selby-Bigge edition, p. 84]

Book Reviews

The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration; as the playwright [Sophocles] says, it "brings to light that which was unseen and shrouds from us that which was manifest." Nevertheless, the science of History is a great bulwark against the stream of Time; in a way it checks this irresistible flood, it holds in a tight grasp whatever it can seize floating on the surface and will not allow it to slip away into the depths of Oblivion.

Anna Comnena (1083-1153), The Alexiad, translated by E.R.A. Sewter [Penguin Classics, 1969, p.17]. Contemporary image of the Empress Maria, the Alan.


Most of the following reference items are perhaps not, strictly speaking, philosophy of history. The editorial intention originally was to provide some material of more general interest than the purely philosophical content of The Proceedings of the Friesian School to attract attention to the website. However, history provides countless examples for the application of ideas from both ethics and political economy. If philosophy is to be historically practical in the Socratic or Platonic sense, then it helps to know history. Political commitment is also an important characrteristic of the Friesian School. Therefore, there has been increasing use of the historical files for these purposes. Not all of history may be covered here, but a very extensive fragment of it certainly is.

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Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved