Frank Ankersmit

Reading Erich Auerbach’s highly influential Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, it quite quickly becomes evident that Auerbach is not seeking to supply us with a universal recipe for realism in literature, if such a recipe even exists. As Edward Said writes in the introduction to Mimesis ”Auerbach offers no system, no shortcut to what he puts before us as a history of the representation of reality in Western literature” (Said xxxii). Rather, we embark on an intriguing ride through Western literature across thousands of years, in order to understand just how closely style and history are related. Through focusing on, and analysing passages of texts written by various writers throughout time, Auerbach expands into connecting the text with its historical environment. Focusing on the 13th chapter of Mimesis, ”The Weary Prince”, in which Auerbach discusses Shakespeare, I will use the ”gravedigger scene” form Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, to test and analyse Auerbach’s views on realism in Mimesis.

Questo libro propone una disamina critica dei principali approcci della storiografia contemporanea, volta a farne emergere le strutture concettuali latenti. "La conoscenza storica", ha scritto Reinhart Koselleck, "verte sempre su qualcosa di più di quel che si trova nelle fonti", si tratta di esplicitarne le teorie e i valori, fatti particolari e storici essi stessi, malamente innalzati a universali. Attraverso un percorso che va dalla storiografia alla filosofia, da Pierre Nora, Carlo Ginzburg, Lynn Hunt a Hayden White, Jacques Derrida, Frank Ankersmit; dalla New Cultural History e dalla histoire de la mémoire al narrativismo e alle filosofie del sublime storico, sono messe a fuoco le forme preminenti del nostro rapporto con il passato. Disciolti i lacci della speculazione, è forse possibile aspirare a una nuova alleanza tra pensiero storico e filosofico, delimitare uno "spazio di mezzo" tra il prassismo acefalo di una storiografia senza filosofia a l'idealismo ipertrofico di una filosofia senza storia.

This paper analyzes key issues in the work of Frank Ankersmit: narrative, representation and sublime historical experience. It argues that his recent turn to experience marks a shift from an interest in narrative and the textual dimension of the past to an examination of the notion of an experience about the past. It suggests that although Ankersmit is usually associated with postmodernist avangardism in historical theory (narrativism, constructivism), as can be seen in his theory of historical representation, his understanding of the concept of historical experience and the sublime can be seen as regression. Thus, although Ankersmit had pushed historical theory beyond the linguistic
turn, his most recent work can be understood as a return to a traditional Romantic view of immediate experience combined with an Enlightenment analysis of it.

This chapter deals with a figure that represents a crucial part of the space we live in, as well as a peculiar motif in literature and fine arts – the ornamental pattern of wallpapers. Drawing on contemporary theories of the ornament and using an excerpt from the novel Pnin (1957) by Vladimir Nabokov, an autobiographical account of the Dutch historian Frank Ankersmit, the film Såsom i en spegel (Through a Glass Darkly, 1961) by Ingmar Bergman, and the artwork of two contemporary Czech visual artists, Michal Pěchouček and Jan Šerých, I argue that wallpaper surfaces represent a remarkable form of survival of Rococo ornament and at the same time suggest that the ornament might contribute to a non-chronological, rather “transfigural”, and aesthetic reflection of art history.

Resumen: A mediados de los 70´s irrumpe con Hayden White el narrativismo en la escena de la filosofía de la historia contemporánea. Hoy, cuarenta años después de la publicación de Metahistoria, se hace necesario reflexionar acerca de la continuidad de la influencia whiteana. Caracterizando el gesto filosófico fundacional del narrativismo como una aceptación irónica del uso del lenguaje en la historiografía y las últimas reflexiones de White y Frank Ankersmit como un aparente rechazo romántico de sus posiciones anteriores, el presente trabajo propone una narración del narrativismo para evaluar su actualidad para el futuro de la filosofía de la historia.

Abstract: In the mid 70´s, narrativism emerges with Hayden White in contemporary philosophy of history´s scene. Today, forty years after Metahistory was published, it is necessary to think over the permanence of White´s influence. By characterizing narrativism´s foundational philosophical gesture as an ironic acceptance of the use of language in historiography and White´s and Frank Ankersmit´s last reflections as an apparent romantic rejection of their previous positions, this article offers a narration of narrativism to assess its current relevance for the future of philosophy of history.

Datos de publicación: (2013) La Greca, María Inés, “Entre la ironía y el romance: Pasado, presente y futuro de la filosofía de la historia narrativista”, en Páginas de Filosofía, Revista del Departamento de Filosofía, Facultad de Humanidades, Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Vol. 14, No. 17, pp. 22-48.

This article proposes to identify the conceptual structure guiding Frank Ankersmit's philosophy of history. We argue that philosophical analysis of history consists in Ankersmit's approach of three different levels: 1) the level of the past itself which is the subject of ontology, 2) the level of description of the past that is studied by epistemol-ogy, and 3) the level of representation of the past which should be analysed primarily by means of aesthetics. In other words, the realm of history is constituted of three aspects: 1) historical experience, 2) historical research, and 3) historical representation. During his whole academic career, Ankersmit has been interested in the first and the third aspects and has tried deliberately to avoid any serious engagement in epistemol-ogy (historical research). Ankersmit's philosophy of history is built on a few fundamental dichotomies that can be considered as a kind of axioms of his thinking: 1) the distinction between historical research and historical writing, and 2) the distinction between description and historical representation. The article offers a critical discussion of Ankersmit's two different approaches to the philosophy of history: cognitivist philosophy of history (analysis of historical representation) and existentialist philoso­ phy of history (analysis of historical experience), and concludes by a short overview of the impact and significance of his historical-philosophical work and of his idea of the uniqueness of history.

SUMARIO


ARTÍCULOS

E. LYTHGOE
¿Una superación de los límites de la representación? La reelaboración del debate en Frank Ankersmit y su recurso al testimonio

C. MACÓN
Más allá del fin de la Historia: ¿Una inhabilitación filosófica de lo político?

J. E. GONZÁLEZ VARELA
El argumento de lo uno sobre muchos del peri ideôn

F. M. PAILOS
Atribuciones de conocimiento, aspectos prácticos y nuevos casos de Stanley

M. MAUER
Foucault y Kojève: post-historia e hiper-historicidad


ESTUDIO CRÍTICO

A. ROSLER
Osvaldo Guariglia, En camino de una justicia global


NOTA

P. CASTELLI – E. ZERBUDIS
Mundo externo e imaginación en la sexta meditación cartesiana. A propósito de unas consideraciones de Mario Caimi


COMENTARIOS BIBLIOGRÁFICOS

R. TORRETTI
Conceptos del Gen (L. Lewowicz)

M. A. GRANADA
Filósofos, filosofía y filosofías en la Encyclopédie de Diderot y d’Alembert (F. Bahr)

M. A. PRESAS
Del Ser a la Palabra, ensayos sobre estética, fenomenología y hermenéutica (J. Blanco)

M. GONZÁLEZ NAVARRO
Interpretar y argumentar. La hermenéutica gadameriana a la luz de las teorías de la argumentación (A. Ratto)

This is a textbook (in Slovak) from the critical philosophy of history discussing the authors from the second half of the 20th century. It includes 6 chapters, which, except the introduction, focus on specific authors: Arthur Danto, Louis Mink, Hayden White, Frank Ankersmit and Paul Roth. The emphasis is, however, on the questions they pose and issues they raise. These include, for instance, the notion of Ideal Chronicle and narrative sentences, the autonomy of history and three modes of comprehension, the issue of historical narrative, the difference between a statement and narratio / a description and historical representation, critique of intentionalism and realism.

As chamadas teorias pós-coloniais iniciaram, na década de 1980, uma revisão histórica que levou ao resgate da história de povos  conquistados e ao questionamento de teorias estabelecidas, como é o caso da teoria de aculturação. A arqueologia, influenciada pelas revisões pós-coloniais, começou a reformular a história do Império  Romano e das províncias a ele incorporadas, entre elas, e de especial interesse no presente trabalho, as províncias estabelecidas em territórios “celtas” e no norte da Grã-Bretanha. Além de questionamentos sobre a teoria de romanização, arqueólogos como Simon James constataram que estas populações possuíam culturas de base local, mostrando que os inúmeros povos rotulados como “celtas” pertenciam a tradições múltiplas e autônomas. No entanto, a cultura popular e inclusive alguns acadêmicos divulgam uma imagem consistente de uma “civilização celta”, habitante de regiões que iam da Espanha aos Balcãs e do norte da Itália às Ilhas Britânicas, para a qual eram as similaridades e não as diferenças que importavam. Mesmo tendo permanecido por muito tempo como um povo à parte, desde a década de 1950, os pictos (ou bretões do norte) também têm sido
incluídos nesta grande civilização. Porém, embora autores gregos e romanos colocassem um grande número de povos continentais antigos sob um único rótulo – celtas -, o mesmo não é verdade com relação aos antigos habitantes das ilhas britânicas: para estes, os autores utilizavam o nome bretões, diferenciando-os dos bárbaros continentais.
Ainda assim, iniciada no século XVII, a construção da história de uma civilização celta, à qual os bretões (habitantes da província romana, em um primeiro momento, e, mais tardiamente, também os bretões do norte) foram incluídos, encontra suporte nos autores clássicos: a similaridade das caracterizações de celtas, gálatas ou gauleses com as dos bretões é notável. De acordo com David Rankin, a cristalização da imagem destes bárbaros deve-se, em grande medida, ao sistema de educação retórico, o qual punha considerável ênfase no aprendizado de lugares-comuns. Seguindo o raciocínio de Rankin, o presente trabalho se propõe a analisar as descrições sobre o modo de fazer guerra de bretões do norte, comparando-as com aquelas dos povos chamados de celtas do continente europeu. Esta comparação se dá ainda à luz das considerações sobre o papel da influência da retórica na história, a inventio, as digressões etnográficas e os lugares-comuns – utilizando para esse fim, as indicações de antigos manuais retóricos. A definição de lugar-comum, um conceito chave para a análise, foi extraída do  manual Da Invenção, de Cícero. Além disso, essas caracterizações foram entendidas como representações, seguindo a teoria proposta pelo historiador Franklin Rudolf Ankersmit que define uma  representação enquanto uma operação de três lugares.

This study is an attempt to cross the boundaries between academic disciplines and provide a new perspective for the interpretation of the past in J. M. Coetzee's Dusklands (1974) and Caryl Phillips's Higher Ground (1989). The analysis of the narrative strategies the two authors share to expose patterns of socially and ideologically constructed representation of the historical «other» draws on some of the main ideas and concepts developed by Frank Ankers-mit, one of the leading figures in contemporary historiography. Reflecting on the relation between interpretation, truth, and the meaning given to past reality, the present article reads the fragments of representations of the past as «narrative substances» and examines the choice and arrangement of these fragments in the two novels. The way individual stories of suffering are interconnected to stand as a «whole» helps our understanding of the discursive practices in the production of knowledge about the past and reveals their power and limitations.

Аннотация. В статье рассматривается обращение философии
и литературной критики ХХ в. к проблеме аллегории и связь
этой темы с проблемой темпоральности. Основное внимание
уделяется концепциям Вальтера Беньямина и Жиля Делёза,
для определения их теоретического контекста и развития в по-
следующие периоды анализируются тексты Э. Блоха, Р. Барта,
П. де Мана, Ф. Анкерсмита, Ж. Диди-Юбермана, М. Э. Холли
и др. Также рассматривается связь концепций аллегории как
темпоральности с эмпирическим материалом Ренессанса, ба-
рокко и романтизма, на котором они очень часто основаны.
Предлагается вывод о том, что, несмотря на разнообразие спо-
собов этой концептуализации, общим местом для всех авторов
становится действие в аллегории анахронизма, превращение ее
в самостоятельную темпоральную структуру, заключающую в
себе литературный опыт преодоления линейности времени.

This article proposes to identify the conceptual structure guiding Frank Ankersmit's philosophy of history. We argue that philosophical analysis of history consists in Ankersmit's approach of three different levels: 1) the level of the past itself which is the subject of ontology, 2) the level of description of the past that is studied by epistemol-ogy, and 3) the level of representation of the past which should be analysed primarily by means of aesthetics. In other words, the realm of history is constituted of three aspects: 1) historical experience, 2) historical research, and 3) historical representation. During his whole academic career, Ankersmit has been interested in the first and the third aspects and has tried deliberately to avoid any serious engagement in epistemol-ogy (historical research). Ankersmit's philosophy of history is built on a few fundamental dichotomies that can be considered as a kind of axioms of his thinking: 1) the distinction between historical research and historical writing, and 2) the distinction between description and historical representation. The article offers a critical discussion of Ankersmit's two different approaches to the philosophy of history: cognitivist philosophy of history (analysis of historical representation) and existentialist philoso­ phy of history (analysis of historical experience), and concludes by a short overview of the impact and significance of his historical-philosophical work and of his idea of the uniqueness of history.

The article reviews Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen's book "Postnarrativist Philosophy of History" and analyzes Christopher Clark's methodology of history writing in his book "Sleepwalkers. How Europe Went to War in 1914" which Kuukkanen takes as a successful example of post-narrativist historiography. Published in Journal of Art Historioraphy, 15 (Dec. 2016) https://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/mitrovic-review.pdf

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 representations in history writing, the importance of Leibniz for the future of the philosophy of history, the representational character of Leibniz’s substances and the problem of relations in his philosophical system.

Opowiada Pani w nim ciekawą historię o tym, jak Pani zainteresowała się teorią, dziedziną o której my nie-fachowcy myślimy, że dominują w niej mężczyźni. Dlatego to, że kobieta-historyk zainteresowała się teorią historii wydaje nam się nietypowe. Czy mogłaby Pani opowiedzieć nam o swoim doświadczeniu bycia kobietą-teoretykiem historii, jak się Pani czuje w tym przeważająco męskim środowisku?

This is a review article discussing both Peter Icke’s “Frank Ankersmit’s Lost Historical Cause: A Journey from Language to Experience”  (2012, Routledge) and Frank Ankersmit’s “Meaning, Truth, and Reference in Historical Representation” (2012, Cornell UP)

PLEASE WRITE ME AT IK6MG -AT- VIRGINIA.EDU IF YOU WOULD LIKE A PDF OF THE FULL CHAPTER.
Kuin, I.N.I. 2020. ‘The Life of the Biographer: Plutarch’s Presence in Sulla, Antony, and Otho,’ in A. Turner (ed.), Reconciling Ancient and Modern Philosophies of History. De Gruyter, Berlin, 207—230.

In this article, we present how the recognition framework of political and historic representation has enabled reactionary political forces, which increasingly recognize its inner contradictions and turn them against the basic principle of universal dignity, with the clear aim of corroding the whole recognition political edifice from the inside out. Taking the field of the symbolic construction of European identity as our main focus, we will reconstruct how the takeover of recognition politics has destabilized political and historic representation in Europe and ended up undermining European integration rather than enhancing it. Following one of the most important theorists of political and historic representation, Frank Ankersmit, we introduce the conceptual distinction between antifoundationalist vs. foundationalist representation in order to account for the series of decisive institutional changes that since the 1970s have contributed to the intersection of two separate fields into 'memory politics' and led to the rise of a new and inherently non-democratic foundationalism, of which recognition politics is one of the main symptoms.

Tanaka Jun, Touching the Past: Historical Experience, Photography, Suspense Foreword " Touching the Past " —I thought that I would begin this book based on the feeling of definitely having had such an experience. This book focuses on events with a connection to the past, especially through photographs, to clarify these " historical experiences. " It also investigates an ideal form of a historical narrative that conveys these experiences within a principle of " suspense. " The text presented in the introduction of this book was written at the time of the Tohoku earthquake and Fukushima nuclear incident in March 2011 before I directly took up the theme of historical experiences. This is because it was a dangerous moment wherein there were encounters with historical images. At this time, when there was contact with surrounding disaster and imminent danger and five senses became completely and abnormally sharpened, a sense of history that attempted to understand the various signs of the past was also sharpened. The historical experiences that this book attempts to problematize are sensory experiences felt through the body and not through information or understanding. In that sense, the discovery of special sensations and knowledge made possible because of being under dangerous circumstances that are presented in the introduction, especially the historical views in Hotta Yoshie's Hōjōki Shiki (A Personal Note on Hōjōki) reported in Chapter 1 and the theme of " hope " discussed in accordance with Walter Benjamin in Chapter 4, announce the entire argument of this book as a sort of " forewarning. " Part I of the book is devoted to theories of historical experience and individual case studies. Chapter 1 investigates the historical narratives of Johan Huizinga and Aby Warburg and their relations with historical experiences. Discussions of historical experiences in current historical theory are also pursued. The work of self-analysis based on my personal experiences cannot be avoided given the nature of the matter at hand. My initial motivation in writing this book was because of the experience that I had in archives that I repeatedly visited as it was necessary for my research on the history of ideas. Chapter 2 is a record of the search for " Asia, " a mysterious woman who appears in the journal and letters of Gilbert Clavel (who is the protagonist of my book Gilbert Clavel: Architect of the Chthonic, which was born out of such comings and goings through an archive). While this is a reasoning process and an investigation that searches for the answer to the question " Who is Asia?, " at the same time, it is a journey through historical experiences that studies firsthand the process required to understand the past. Chapters 3 and 4 report the historical experiences of the historian of thought Hashikawa Bunso and the architect Daniel Libeskind, respectively. Because they are the figures who serve as guides, as I have pursued my research on political imagination and modern and contemporary architectural discussions, the investigations in these two chapters search for experiences that were the root of their philosophy. In this book, the target when dealing with experiences that " touch the past, " especially in focused investigations, is photographs. This is because photographs strongly define historical experiences since the mid-19th century as objects that directly prove the reality of the past. However, the value of photographs as historical materials has not necessarily been recognized in historical research because photographs too directly display the past, and thus, they could not be easily incorporated into the historical discourse. In Part II of the book, I analyze five photographs of the blast zone clicked by Matsushige Yoshito on August 6 th , 1945, the day when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima; I also analyze four photographs secretly clicked by a Sonderkommando at the second concentration camp at Auschwitz (Birkenau). All these photographs were clicked under extreme circumstances; thus, I focus the discussion on the possibility of getting close to places of liminal experiences through photography and ethical problems that are entailed. The former takes the form of a study on the discussion in Images in Spite of All: Four Photographs from Auschwitz by Georges Didi-Huberman.