TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: The Earthrise and Blue Marble Photographs

On Tuesday, 24 December 1968—57 years ago today—while orbiting the moon, the astronauts of Apollo 8 took a photograph of Earth rising above the surface of the moon. Earlier this month was the 53rd anniversary of the famous Blue Marble photograph, taken on 07 December 1972, four years after the Earthrise photograph. These two photographs changed how we saw Earth, and therefore changed how we saw ourselves and our relation to the Earth.

Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/

Discord: https://discord.gg/AHVsXpJFGG

Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/

#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #Earthrise #BlueMarble #SpaceExploration #environmentalism #ExistentialPositionality #MetaphysicalOrienteering #OverviewEffect

TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: The Alexander Counterfactual

Alexander the Great conquered an empire and then died young, ensuring that his legend would outlive the man, which it has. What if Alexander had lived? Would his empire have endured, or would it have proved as ephemeral as it did, regardless? If Alexander had taken his best Macedonian troops against the Romans would he have dominated the Mediterranean Basin and left a Greek empire to history, or would Rome have made short work of him? Ancient historians asked themselves these counterfactuals, and I discuss some of these speculative efforts.

Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/

Discord: https://discord.gg/AHVsXpJFGG

Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/

#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #AlexandertheGreat #counterfactual #empire #Greeks #Romans #Persians #LastPlans #WesternClause

TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: A Paragraph from Montaigne

One of the most memorable lines in Montaigne is, “Je ne peinds pas l’estre, je peinds le passage…” Needless to say, his English translators have rendered the line in various ways. It’s from Book III, Chapter 2, “De repentir,” usually translated “Of Repentance.” I discuss this line and the paragraph of which it is a part.

Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/

Discord: https://discord.gg/AHVsXpJFGG

Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/

#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #MicheldeMontaigne #skepticism #Heraclitus

TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Winckelmann on Noble Simplicity and Quiet Grandeur

Tuesday 09 December 2025 is the 308th anniversary of the birth of Johann Joachim Winckelmann (09 December 1717 – 08 June 1768), who was born in Stendal in Saxony-Anhalt, which was then part of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which was in turn part of the Holy Roman Empire.

Winckelmann was one of the greatest of art historians. His masterpiece of art history is usually identified as Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (The History of Art in Antiquity), published in 1764, but what brought him early fame was his first pamphlet, which was only printed in 50 copies in 1755, his Gedanken über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerei und Bildhauerkunst (Reflections on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture), which made a real splash at the time. In this episode I consider this work and its influence.

Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/

Discord: https://discord.gg/AHVsXpJFGG

Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/

#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #JohannJoachimWinckelmann #ClassicalAntiqity #NobleSimplicity #QuietGrandeur #recursion #WesternHistory #classicism #neoclassicism

TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Re-Founding History as Big History

This episode is a presentation that I gave to an online big history meeting, with a few changes made. The theme of the conference was “A New Big History: theory, methods, objects & perspectives,” and I attempted to follow the template of the meeting organizers as closely as I could.

The earliest domains of human knowledge, which include history, were founded in a context in which the sciences were unformed and inchoate. Mathematics and cosmology, also among the earliest disciplines, have been repeatedly transformed by conceptual revolutions in their foundations. History as a discipline, however, has not experienced any revolution in its foundations comparable to the foundational transformations of the natural sciences since the scientific revolution, or even the social sciences since the twentieth century. History, then, is ripe for a re-founding that would set the discipline on new foundations. This re-founding of history would constitute a Copernican displacement in which historical knowledge previously understood to be central is displaced to the periphery of knowledge and the heretofore unknown periphery comes into focus as the normative basis of history. This results in changes both to the traditional conception of history and the implicit conception of history in big history. Big history has been understood as a multidisciplinary effort, but the re-founding of history as big history (which should properly be understood as history simpliciter) means its conception as a multidisciplinary science is replaced by a univocal science with a theoretical foundation adequate to the indefinite expansion of historical knowledge.

Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/

Discord: https://discord.gg/AHVsXpJFGG

Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/

#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #BigHistory #interdisciplinarity #univocal #astrobiology #macrohistory #time #proto-naturalistic #MethodologicalNaturalism #ScientificRevolution

TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Blaise Pascal’s Night of Fire

On Monday evening, 23 November 1654—371 days ago today—mathematician, scientist, and philosopher Blaise Pascal was overcome by a mystical experience. Pascal wrote out an account of his mystical experience and sewed it into his coat, which he wore until he died.

Pascal was a genius and a polymath who made contributions to natural science, mathematics, and literature, but after his mystical experience he abandoned all other work to focus on religious apologetics. In this episode I consider Pascal’s mystical vision and other altered forms of consciousness as influences that shape history, and not always for the better.

Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/

Discord: https://discord.gg/AHVsXpJFGG

Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/

#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #BlaisePascal #Voltaire #mysticism #MysticalExperience #AlteredStates #entheogens #hallucinogens

TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Voltaire and the Origins of Modern Philosophy of History

21 November 2025 is the 331st anniversary of the birth of François-Marie Arouet (21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), better known by his pen name Voltaire, who was born in Paris on this date in 1694.

Voltaire was one of the great figures of the Enlightenment, and he was the first to write a book titled Philosophy of History. The modern tradition of philosophy of history has its origins in this explicit recognition of the discipline, but whereas Voltaire had a thoroughly naturalistic approach, his successors took a different path.

Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/

Discord: https://discord.gg/AHVsXpJFGG

Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/

#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #Voltaire # François-MarieArouet #Enlightenment #StateofNature #ThoughtExperiment #naturalism #RationalReconstruction #LogicalEmpiricism #Rousseau

TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Frederick Jackson Turner and the Frontier Thesis

Friday 14 November 2025 is the 164th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Jackson Turner (14 November 1861 – 14 March 1932), who was born in Portage, Wisconsin, on this date in 1861.

Turner’s “frontier thesis” has been a touchstone of American history since Turner introduced the idea, being both widely influential and widely criticized. Turner contended that the experience of the frontier shaped the American character and American institutions. Is this a distinctive and unique feature of American history, or can the frontier thesis be generalized to other times and places?

Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/

Discord: https://discord.gg/AHVsXpJFGG

Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/

#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #FrederickJacksonTurner #TurnerThesis #frontier #FrontierThesis #GeoffreyElton #Atlanticism #exceptionalism #AmericanExceptionalism #ManifestDestiny # MissionCivilisatrice