Philosophy of history is the Cinderella of contemporary philosophy. Philosophers rarely believe that the issues dealt with by philosophers of history are matters of any great theoretical interest or urgency. In their view philosophy of history rarely goes beyond the question of how results that have already been achieved elsewhere can or should be applied to the domain of historical writing. Moreover, contemporary philosophers of history have done desperately little to dispel the low opinion that their colleagues have of them. (...) In this essay I argue that Arthur Danto is the exception confirming the rule, for Danto’s philosophy of representation may help us understand how texts relate to what they are about. The main shortcoming of philosophy of language undoubtedly is that it never bothered to investigate the philosophical mysteries of the text. The writing of history is a philosophical goldmine and we must praise Danto for having reminded us of this. (shrink)

Originally published in 1937 as part of the 'Yesterday and Today in Germany' series for Cambridge Contact Readers, this German text describes a fantasy tour around Germany taken by David Hanes, the fictional English schoolchild from the first instalment, now an Oxford undergraduate. David now corresponds with a number of German friends during his trip, and learns more about German traditions and ways of life. The text is illustrated with valuable photographs of inter-war German life, as well as maps, charts (...) and sheet music. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Germany and the history of German teaching in Britain. (shrink)

We no longer have any texts, any past, but just interpretations of them. The evident multi -interpretability of a text causes it gradually to lose its capacity to function as arbiter in the historical debate. It is necessary to define a new link with the past based on a complete and honest recognition of the position in which we now see ourselves placed as historians. In recent years, many people have observed our changed attitude towards the phenomenon of information. For (...) postmodernism, science and information are independent objects of study which obey their own laws. Language and art are not situated opposite reality but are themselves a pseudo-reality and are therefore situated within reality. Because of the relation between the historiographical view and the language used by the historian to express his view - a relation which nowhere intersects the domain of the past -historiography possesses the same opacity and intensional dimension as art. The essence of postmodernism is precisely that we should avoid pointing out essentialist patterns in the past. There is reason to assume that our relation to the past and our insight into it will in future be of a metaphorical nature rather than a literal one. (shrink)

There are no dictionary meanings or authoritative discussions of "presence" that fix the significance of this word in a way that ought to be accepted by anybody using it. So we are in the welcome possession of great freedom to maneuver when using the term. In fact, the only feasible requirement for its use is that it should maximally contribute to our understanding of the humanities. When trying to satisfy this requirement I shall relate "presence" to representation. Then I focus (...) on a variant of representation in which the past is allowed to travel to the present as a kind of "stowaway" , so that the past is literally "present" in historical representation. I appeal to Runia's notion of so-called "parallel processes" for an analysis of this variant of historical representation. (shrink)

This book is the 1906 second edition of the Hulsean Lectures delivered at the University of Cambridge between 1901 and 1902. In these four lectures, F. R. Tennant challenges conventional teachings on Original Sin and the story of the Fall, arguing that his contemporaries had misinterpreted the biblical presentation of sin and its manifestations. Tennant aims to redefine the sin of both the race and the individual, and in doing so engages with traducianism and the philosophies of Malebranche, Kant and (...) Hegel. He argues that action predates modern conceptions of right and wrong, and that transgression is only sin if the actor is aware of what is morally right. Of course, these theories were met with great opposition, an opposition which Tennant uses the preface of this second edition to confront. These fascinating lectures and their appendages will be of great interest to scholars of Christian theology and the fin de siècle alike. (shrink)

Background: Nursing students on clinical placements as part of their professional training are routinely faced with situations involving ethical conflicts. The initial act of perceiving a situation as causing an ethical dilemma is the result of both the students’ personal values, drawn from their culture and families, and of the professional knowledge and values that they have acquired through training and experience. Objectives: Nursing students’ experiences on clinical placements in primary care settings were investigated in order to identify situations that (...) they perceived as involving ethical conflict and describe the elements they took into consideration during their decision-making processes in these situations. Methods: The research design was qualitative descriptive case study. Around 50 students from three different intakes to a nursing degree answered a questionnaire and discussed it in focus groups. Ethical considerations: The study was designed in accordance with the principles guiding research with human beings and was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee. Results: Synthesised into two principal axes: (a) ethical conflicts in primary care, linked with the domains of working processes, professional nursing ethics and human and social rights and (b) students’ decision-making processes – realisation, reflection and intervention. Conclusion: The student nurses saw themselves both as actors and spectators in situations involving ethical problems and demanding moral deliberation, demonstrating the ability to base their arguments soundly. They tended to emphasise the possibilities offered by dialogue and that different ethical values must be respected to find fair solutions to ethical problems. (shrink)

The main difficulty utilitarians have faced is the problem of reconciling the dictates of utility with what seem clearly to be moral duties, but based on considerations of Justice. John Stuart Mill addressed this problem in his essay,Utilitarianism,and the result has not served to silence the critics of utilitarianism on this score. In part, this is due to the fact that Mill's position in the chapter on Justice is not entirely clear, nor is it entirely convincing where it is clear. (...) Still, I do not think Mill's views on Justice have been given their due. In this essay, I shall try to show that Mill anticipated recently defended principles that rely on appeal to a notion of fairness or fair play, and that these can be given a utilitarian foundation. (shrink)

That narrative language has the ontological status of being an object; that it is opaque; that it is self-referential; that it is intentional and, hence, intrinsically aestheticist; that the narrative meaning of an text is undecidable in an important sense of that word and even bears the marks of self-contradiction; that narrative meaning can only be identified in the presence of other meaning ; that as far as narrative meaning is concerned the text refers, but not to a reality outside (...) itself; that criteria of truth and falsity do not apply to historical representations of the past; that we can only properly speak of causes and effects at the level of the statement; that narrative language is metaphorical and as such embodies a proposal for how we should see the past; that narrative representations of the past have a tendency to disintegrate; all these postmodernist claims can be given a formal or even "modernist" justification if we are prepared to develop a philosophical logic suitable for dealing with the narrative substance. (shrink)

Why are we interested in history at all? Why do we feel the need to distinguish between past and present? In this book, the author argues that the past originates from an experience of rupture separating past and present. Think of the radical rupture with Europe's past that was effected by the French and the Industrial Revolutions. Sublime Historical Experience investigates how the notion of sublime historical experience complicates and challenges existing conceptions of language, truth, and knowledge. These experiences of (...) rupture are paradoxical since they involve both the separation of past and present and, at the same time, the effort to overcome this separation in terms of historical knowledge. The experience unites feelings of loss/pain with those of love/satisfaction, and thus is in agreement with how sublime experience is ordinarily defined. The experience is also precognitive since it precedes historical knowledge. As such it is a challenge to traditional conceptions of the relationship between experience and truth or language. It compels us to disconnect the notions of experience and truth. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Origins of the Contemporary Debate Historiographic Research and Writing Two Variants of Narrativist Philosophy of Historiography The Philosophical Approach The Transcendentalization of Narrativist Philosophy of Historiography Rhetorical Narrativist Philosophy Hayden White Conclusion Bibliography.