Frank Ankersmit
Biographic Data
| ID | 967023 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Frank Ankersmit |
| GIVEN NAMES | Frank |
| FAMILY NAME | Ankersmit |
| SIGNATURE | ANKERSMIT F |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Groningen |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 51 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 38 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 50 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Reply to Jay
Being Realistic about Anti-realism
In this criticism of Mitrović argument about realism it is pointed out 1): that Mitrović is unaware of how the medieval debate between realists and nominalists about the existence of universals complicates his position, 2) similarly, he is unaware of how the debate on the so-called ‘essentially contested concepts’ (W.B. Gallie) complicates his position, 3) when taking up the issue of holism and individualism he mistakenly assumes that what has be…
Historia y teoría política
Este artículo tiene como objetivo definir la naturaleza de la teoría política y su relación con la historia, donde se puede identificar una tensión fundamental: si, por un lado, la historia se convirtió con el tiempo no solo en el contexto sino en la esencia del pensamiento político, por el otro, un el pensamiento político historizado, preocupado por las verdades absolutas, ha sido rechazado como una contradictio in terminis. Para explorar esta t…
Humanistisch-republicanistische vrijheid en middeleeuwse vrijheid
Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community
Peter Munz and Historical Thought
Few philosophers of history ever recognized the profundity of Peter Munz’s The Shapes of Time that came out in 1977. In this book Munz upheld the view that no part or aspect of the past itself provides us with the solid fundament of all historical knowledge. For him, the historian’s most fundamental logical entity is what he calls the Sinngebild . The Sinngebild consists of two events defined and held together by a covering law. These CL ’s can b…
A Narrativist Revival
Up till the 1980s narrativist philosophers of history were mainly interested in the cognitivist dimension of historical narrative. With Hayden White this interest was exchanged for an exclusive preoccupation with the literary aspects of the historian’s narrative representation of the past. However, it may seem that a revival of pre-Whitean narrativist philosophy of history is at hand. Two recent books suggest as much: one by Chiel van den Akker p…
Koselleck on "Histories" Versus "History"; Or, Historical Ontology Versus Historical Epistemology
The theme of this journal issue deals with the opposition between what can be said to be the "inside" and the "outside" of a culture or a civilization, a question that can be approached in different ways. To begin with, one may ask whether certain anthropological constants can be discerned in all of humanity or, to take the opposite approach, whether civilizations possess certain cultural features that are unique to them. An approach focusing on …
The Thorn of History: Unintended Consequences and Speculative Philosophy of History
Most, if not all, readers of this journal will be familiar with Hegel's notion of "the Cunning of Reason," which refers to the idea that the unintended consequences of human action should bring about the self-realization of the Mind or the Spirit. What Hegel left to his reader's imagination was the question of how order could arise from the chaos of unintended consequences. Nevertheless, Hegel's notion of the unintended consequences of human acti…
Re-Figuring Hayden White
Produced in honor of White's eightieth birthday, Re-Figuring Hayden White testifies to the lasting importance of White's innovative work, which firmly reintegrates historical studies with literature and the humanities. The book is a major reconsideration of the historian's contributions and influence by an international group of leading scholars from a variety of disciplines. Individual essays address the key concepts of White's intellectual care…
Reply to My Critics
In this essay I reply to the comments by Daniel Fairbrother, Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen, Chiel van den Akker, Martin Jay, Hans Kellner and Jacques Bos on things I wrote on philosophy of history in the last few decades. The reply’s main claim is that not my frequent appeals to Leibniz are surprising, but the total neglect of Leibniz by all philosophers of history since 1945. If only, because in the very first treatise on so-called ‘critical philosophy …
Farewell to the Readers of the jph
Forum Debate on Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen’s Postnarrativist Philosophy of Historiography
Is narrativism dead or still alive? Have all questions occasioned by the historical text been answered, so that philosophers of history must now turn to other problems? Or did narrativist philosophy of history have its blind spots that now demand their scrutiny? And if the historical text still has its secrets and mysteries, is narrativism capable of dealing with them? Or would we need for this a ‘postnarrativist’ approach? And, if so, what will …
A Dialogue with Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen
The discussion of Kuukkanen's bookPostnarrativist Philosophy of Historiography(2015) is presented here in the form of a dialogue. The dialogue addresses the following five issues: 1) the kind of claims typically made in- and by the historical text, 2) narrativism and historical representation, 3) representational holism, 4) representationalism and non-representationalism and 5) the role of argument in historical writing. While agreement is within…
Historical Experience Interrogated: A Conversation
In this interview, Jonathan Menezes asks Frank Ankersmit about various aspects of his theory of historical experience, focusing especially on his main book on the subject, Sublime Historical Experience (2005), but also on other writings in which he accounted for historical experience, like History and Tropology (1994) and Meaning, Truth and Reference in Historical Representation (2012). The subjects addressed in the conversation include some of t…
Leibnizian philosophy of history: A conversation
In this interview Marek Tamm asks questions concerning some of the main developments and arguments in Frank Ankersmit’s thinking about history, focusing on the Leibnizian dimension of his work. The following topics are discussed: the role of the philosophy of history within the academic philosophy and history writing, the relevance of historicism for contemporary philosophy of history, the distinction between descriptive sentences and representat…
Tocqueville and Flaubert on 1848: The Sublimity of Revolution
Sovereignty and Political Representation
Redescriptions: Political Thought, Conceptual History and Feminist Theory is an international refereed open access journal, which publishes contributions on the transdisciplinary study of concepts. In classical rhetoric, ‘redescription’ refers to a rhetorical move that alters the use of a concept in one respect or another. The journal draws attention to conceptual moves within political theory, conceptual history and feminist thought, and highlig…
Beware of the gurus
On Settling
Book Review| April 01 2014 On Settling Goodin, Robert E., On Settling. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 114 pp. Frank Ankersmit Frank Ankersmit Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2014) 20 (2): 363–364. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-2422989 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Frank Ankersmit; On Settling. Common Knowledge 1 …
Aftermaths and “Foremaths”: History and Humans
Introduction: History and Truth
Reply to professor Roth: On how antidogmatism bred dogmatism
Quine's post-positivism was, mainly, an attack on the dogmatism of foundationalist philosophy of language and science claiming to offer an apriorist account of knowledge and of the relation between language and the world. In opposition to this dogmatism Quine's post-positivism required the philosopher of language and science to respect and be open to how in the practice of science knowledge may emerge. Roth's review of my book exemplifies how Qui…
History as the Science of the Individual
It has often been argued - especially by historicists - that history deals with the individual where science focuses on the universal. But few philosophers would nowadays express their agreement with the historicist's demarcation between history and the sciences. A standard criticism is that knowledge of the individual can only be expressed by an appeal to universals. This essay is an effort to rehabilitate the historicist argument by means of a …
Representation as a Cognitive Instrument
This essay discusses the role of the notions of reference, truth, and meaning in historical representation. Four major claims will be argued. First, conditional for all meaningful discussion of historical representation is that one radically discards from one's mind the paradigm of the true statement and all the epistemological and ontological problems occasioned by it. Second, representation is not a two-place, but a three-place operator: in rep…
The Future and Its Enemies: In Defense of Political Hope
Book Review| August 01 2013 The Future and Its Enemies: In Defense of Political Hope Innerarity, Daniel, The Future and Its Enemies: In Defense of Political Hope (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012), 134 pp. Frank Ankersmit Frank Ankersmit Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2013) 19 (3): 559. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-2281882 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio…
History as the Science of the Individual
It has often been argued - especially by historicists - that history deals with the individual where science focuses on the universal. But few philosophers would nowadays express their agreement with the historicist's demarcation between history and the sciences. A standard criticism is that knowledge of the individual can only be expressed by an appeal to universals. This essay is an effort to rehabilitate the historicist argument by means of a …
Representational Democracy
Research Article| January 01 2002 REPRESENTATIONAL DEMOCRACY: An Aesthetic Approach to Conflict and Compromise Frank R. Ankersmit Frank R. Ankersmit Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2002) 8 (1): 24–46. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-8-1-24 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Perm…
Historical Experience Interrogated: A Conversation
In this interview, Jonathan Menezes asks Frank Ankersmit about various aspects of his theory of historical experience, focusing especially on his main book on the subject, Sublime Historical Experience (2005), but also on other writings in which he accounted for historical experience, like History and Tropology (1994) and Meaning, Truth and Reference in Historical Representation (2012). The subjects addressed in the conversation include some of t…
Leibnizian philosophy of history: A conversation
In this interview Marek Tamm asks questions concerning some of the main developments and arguments in Frank Ankersmit’s thinking about history, focusing on the Leibnizian dimension of his work. The following topics are discussed: the role of the philosophy of history within the academic philosophy and history writing, the relevance of historicism for contemporary philosophy of history, the distinction between descriptive sentences and representat…
The Necessity of Historicism
Rankean historicism is ordinarily seen nowadays as an outdated nineteenth century fashion and that we could not possibly tolerate in our modern intellectual homes. In opposition to this common wisdom I argue that historicism - i.e. the claim that the nature of a thing is to be found in is history - is no less true for all writing of history as it was in the days of Ranke. So Ranke was right, after all. I shall argue my untimely thesis by focusing…
Introduction: Regarding Change at Ise Jingū
Exchanging Ideas
In this debate Mark Bevir and Frank Ankersmit continue their discussion of Bevir's The Logic of the History of Ideas . There are two related areas of contention: 1) the notion of intention and its use for a correct understanding of the writing of the history of ideas and 2) the question how deep the (ontological and/or epistemological) gap runs separating us from the past. Keywords: Meaning Intention The History Of Ideas The Past'S Strangeness Da…
Koselleck on "Histories" Versus "History"; Or, Historical Ontology Versus Historical Epistemology
The theme of this journal issue deals with the opposition between what can be said to be the "inside" and the "outside" of a culture or a civilization, a question that can be approached in different ways. To begin with, one may ask whether certain anthropological constants can be discerned in all of humanity or, to take the opposite approach, whether civilizations possess certain cultural features that are unique to them. An approach focusing on …
A Dialogue with Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen
The discussion of Kuukkanen's bookPostnarrativist Philosophy of Historiography(2015) is presented here in the form of a dialogue. The dialogue addresses the following five issues: 1) the kind of claims typically made in- and by the historical text, 2) narrativism and historical representation, 3) representational holism, 4) representationalism and non-representationalism and 5) the role of argument in historical writing. While agreement is within…
Representation as a Cognitive Instrument
This essay discusses the role of the notions of reference, truth, and meaning in historical representation. Four major claims will be argued. First, conditional for all meaningful discussion of historical representation is that one radically discards from one's mind the paradigm of the true statement and all the epistemological and ontological problems occasioned by it. Second, representation is not a two-place, but a three-place operator: in rep…
Invitation to historians
In this essay I give an idea of my main preoccupation as a historical theorist. I take my point of departure in what I consider to be the less satisfactory aspects of contemporary 'theory'. These are, in the first place, the lack of a feeling of 'urgency' about all that we are doing and, second, a loss of authenticity of expression, an abandonment to the free play of theoretical abstraction and form which the confrontation with the real has all b…
The Thorn of History: Unintended Consequences and Speculative Philosophy of History
Most, if not all, readers of this journal will be familiar with Hegel's notion of "the Cunning of Reason," which refers to the idea that the unintended consequences of human action should bring about the self-realization of the Mind or the Spirit. What Hegel left to his reader's imagination was the question of how order could arise from the chaos of unintended consequences. Nevertheless, Hegel's notion of the unintended consequences of human acti…
Tocqueville and Flaubert on 1848: The Sublimity of Revolution
Reply to professor Roth: On how antidogmatism bred dogmatism
Quine's post-positivism was, mainly, an attack on the dogmatism of foundationalist philosophy of language and science claiming to offer an apriorist account of knowledge and of the relation between language and the world. In opposition to this dogmatism Quine's post-positivism required the philosopher of language and science to respect and be open to how in the practice of science knowledge may emerge. Roth's review of my book exemplifies how Qui…
Danto's Philosophy of History in Retrospective
Danto's Analytical Philosopy of History is one of the undisputed classics of post-war reflection on the nature of historical writing. Upon its publication in 1965 it was immediately recognized to be a major contribution to contemporary historical thought. Strangely enough, however, little effort was made by philosophers of history to penetrate into the depth of Danto's argument. The explanation is, perhaps, that there was more than a hint of hist…
Pygmalion: Rousseau and Diderot on the theatre and on representation
This essay deals with the relationship between the represented and its represented and its representation. Point of departure is the postmodernist account of this relationship. Postmodernists tend to downplay the differences between the two and even emphasize that there should be a free transference of properties from the one to the other. They are criticized for this by positivists, empiricists and so on, who all share a robust sense of reality.…
Tocqueville and the Ambivalences of Democracy
Despite the clarity of his style, Tocqueville is continually drawn toward self-contradiction. This inconsistent and ambiguous Tocqueville should be taken no less seriously than Elster's reedited and purified Tocqueville. Indeed, ambiguity seems part and parcel of democracy as Tocqueville envisages it, a view which is defended by pointing toward his peculiar obsession with civil liberty to the expense of political liberty, his ambivalent account o…
Representation: History and Politics
Exchanging Ideas
In this debate Mark Bevir and Frank Ankersmit continue their discussion of Bevir's The Logic of the History of Ideas . There are two related areas of contention: 1) the notion of intention and its use for a correct understanding of the writing of the history of ideas and 2) the question how deep the (ontological and/or epistemological) gap runs separating us from the past. Keywords: Meaning Intention The History Of Ideas The Past'S Strangeness Da…
Political Representation
This ambitious work aims to reintroduce history into political theory. Contemporary political philosophy—liberalism, communitarianism, and republicanism—disregards history because it is irrelevant to the nature of politics and to what constitutes a political problem. The author argues that this view reduces politics and political philosophy to a vapid academic game that is insensitive to both the essence and practice of politics. He proposes that…
Representational Democracy
Research Article| January 01 2002 REPRESENTATIONAL DEMOCRACY: An Aesthetic Approach to Conflict and Compromise Frank R. Ankersmit Frank R. Ankersmit Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2002) 8 (1): 24–46. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-8-1-24 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Perm…
Pygmalion: Rousseau and Diderot on the theatre and on representation
This essay deals with the relationship between the represented and its represented and its representation. Point of departure is the postmodernist account of this relationship. Postmodernists tend to downplay the differences between the two and even emphasize that there should be a free transference of properties from the one to the other. They are criticized for this by positivists, empiricists and so on, who all share a robust sense of reality.…
Invitation to historians
In this essay I give an idea of my main preoccupation as a historical theorist. I take my point of departure in what I consider to be the less satisfactory aspects of contemporary 'theory'. These are, in the first place, the lack of a feeling of 'urgency' about all that we are doing and, second, a loss of authenticity of expression, an abandonment to the free play of theoretical abstraction and form which the confrontation with the real has all b…
The Postnational Constellation
Reply to Professor Saari
In my reply I focus on Professor Saari's criticism of my views on the notions of historical truth, reference and meaning. I argue that the commonsense conceptions of truth and reference as used by Professor Saari are insufficient for achieving a correct understanding of the writing of history and that some technical refinement is therefore required. My conclusion is that my disagreement with Professor Saari probably does not go beyond the questio…
Orde en trouw. Over Johan Huizinga
The Philosophy of History: An Agenda
Jacobi
Research Article| April 01 2008 Jacobi: Realist, Romanticist, and Beacon for Our Time Frank Ankersmit Frank Ankersmit Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2008) 14 (2): 221–243. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-2007-070 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Frank Ankersmit; Jacobi: Realist, Romanticist, and Beacon for Our Time. Common Knowledge 1 A…
Rorty and History
Rorty and History Frank Ankersmit (bio) I. Introduction The topic of "Rorty and history" is, at first sight, not a very promising one. Rorty never discussed any of the great historians from the past and the present, such as Gibbon, Ranke, Burckhardt, Huizinga, Meinecke, or Braudel.1 He was even less interested in philosophy of history and considered this discipline to be devoid of interest and significance.2 He never commented on the work of Hayd…
Introduction: Regarding Change at Ise Jingū
Danto's Philosophy of History in Retrospective
Danto's Analytical Philosopy of History is one of the undisputed classics of post-war reflection on the nature of historical writing. Upon its publication in 1965 it was immediately recognized to be a major contribution to contemporary historical thought. Strangely enough, however, little effort was made by philosophers of history to penetrate into the depth of Danto's argument. The explanation is, perhaps, that there was more than a hint of hist…
Politics of History in Contemporary Africa
The Meaning of Historicism for Our Time
Why does Language Matter to History (and History to Language)
Representation and Reference
This essay focuses on the historical text as a whole. It does so by conceiving of the historical text as representation ‐ in the way the we may say of a photo or a painting that it represents the person depicted on it. It is argued that representation cannot be properly understood by modelling it on true description. So all the central questions asked since the days of Frege with regard to how the true statement relates to the world must be asked…
The Necessity of Historicism
Rankean historicism is ordinarily seen nowadays as an outdated nineteenth century fashion and that we could not possibly tolerate in our modern intellectual homes. In opposition to this common wisdom I argue that historicism - i.e. the claim that the nature of a thing is to be found in is history - is no less true for all writing of history as it was in the days of Ranke. So Ranke was right, after all. I shall argue my untimely thesis by focusing…
What if Our Representative Democracies are Elective Aristocracies
The Transfiguration of Distance Into Function
The point of departure of this essay is the intuition that the relationship between the past and the present (or between the past as the object of historical investigation and what is said about it by the historian) should be conceived of in terms of temporal distance. The spatial metaphor of distance at work in this intuition is thought to provide the basis for the epistemological model appropriate for understanding the nature of historical know…
The Dialectics of Jameson's Dialectics
This review essay attempts to understand the book under review against the background of Jameson's previous writings. Failing to do so would invite misunderstanding since there are few contemporary theorists whose writing forms so much of a unity. Jameson's book can be divided into three parts. The first and most important part deals with dialectics, the second with politics, and the third with philosophy of history. In the first part Jameson arg…
Meaning, Truth, and Reference in Historical Representation
"In this book, the noted intellectual historian Frank Ankersmit provides a systematic account of the problems of reference, truth, and meaning in historical writing. He works from the conviction that the historicist account of historical writing, associated primarily with Leopold von Ranke and Wilhelm von Humboldt, is essentially correct but that its original idealist and romanticist idiom needs to be translated into more modern terms. Rehabilita…
Meaning, Truth, and Reference in Historical Representation
In this book, the noted intellectual historian Frank Ankersmit provides a systematic account of the problems of reference, truth, and meaning in historical writing. He works from the conviction that the historicist account of historical writing, associated primarily with Leopold von Ranke and Wilhelm von Humboldt, is essentially correct but that its original idealist and romanticist idiom needs to be translated into more modern terms. Rehabilitat…
Philosophy (36 works) · Epistemology (32 works) · Law (27 works) · Philosophy (25 works) · History (21 works) · Political science (21 works) · History (16 works) · Politics (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Philosophy, History, and Historiography (15 works)