• Log In

The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog

Subscribe on Android Spotify Google Podcasts audible patreon
  • Home
  • Podcast
    • PEL Network Episodes
    • Publicly Available PEL Episodes
    • Paywalled and Ad-Free Episodes
    • PEL Episodes by Topic
    • Nightcap
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Pretty Much Pop
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • (sub)Text
    • Phi Fic Podcast
    • Combat & Classics
    • Constellary Tales
  • Blog
  • About
    • PEL FAQ
    • Meet PEL
    • About Pretty Much Pop
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • Meet Phi Fic
    • Listener Feedback
    • Links
  • Join
    • Become a Citizen
    • Join Our Mailing List
    • Log In
  • Donate
  • Store
    • Episodes
    • Swag
    • Everything Else
    • Cart
    • Checkout
    • My Account
  • Contact
  • Mailing List

Philosophy of History Part XXI: Edward Hallett Carr and Totalitarian Historiography

December 10, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 2 Comments

It is the historian who has decided for his own reasons that Caesar’s crossing of that petty stream, the Rubicon, is a fact of history, whereas the crossing of the Rubicon by millions of other people before or since interests nobody at all. –Edward Hallett Carr Edward Hallett Carr (1892–1982), “the Red Professor of Clearinghouse Square,” was a British diplomat-turned-historian  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History Part XX: Arnold Toynbee and the Challenge of Civilization

December 3, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 3 Comments

Civilization is a movement and not a condition; a voyage and not a harbor. –Arnold Toynbee Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975) was a British historian and philosopher who is best remembered for his monumental Study of History, released in twelve volumes between 1934 and 1961. In this work he traced the rise and fall of twenty-one civilizations, which he defined as the self-contained  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History Part XIX: Carl Becker and Progressive History

November 27, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 6 Comments

To establish the facts is always in order, and is indeed the first duty of the historian; but to suppose that the facts, once established in all their fullness, will ‘speak for themselves’ is an illusion. –Carl Becker Carl Becker (1873–1945) was an American intellectual historian and a member of the Progressive School in American historical thought. Along with his mentor  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History Part XVIII: Herbert Butterfield and the Whig Interpretation of History

November 19, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 3 Comments

The study of the past with one eye, so to speak, upon the present is the source of all sins and sophistries in history. –Herbert Butterfield Herbert Butterfield (1900–1979) was a British historian of science and religion who is probably best remembered for his essay The Whig Interpretation of History (1931). In it he made several important and closely related points about  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History Part XVII: Oswald Spengler and the Decline of the West

November 12, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 4 Comments

One day the last portrait of Rembrandt and the last bar of Mozart will have ceased to be—though possibly a colored canvas and a sheet of notes will remain—because the last eye and the last ear accessible to their message will have gone. –Oswald Spengler Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) was one of the last great voices of literary history. Like Gibbon and Michelet, he had no formal  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History Part XVI: The Collapse of Civilization in Europe, 1914–1945

November 3, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 2 Comments

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever. –George Orwell There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. –Elie Wiesel The principle aim of intellectual history is to show how ideas have developed over time, and how they both arise out of, and actively shape,  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History Part XV: What Is Historicism?

October 23, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 4 Comments

Historicism is a somewhat obscure term, but one does occasionally encounter it in philosophy, and especially in discussions about the theory and nature of history, so I thought it might be worthwhile to pause for a moment and discuss it. Historicism is the view, first advanced by Giambattista Vico, and later rediscovered (apparently independently) by German historians, that  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History Part XIV: Friedrich Nietzsche: History as Art

October 15, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 9 Comments

History, in so far as it serves life, serves an unhistorical power. –Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) once wrote: “I love the great despisers, for they are the great adorers, and arrows of longing for the other shore.” He was such a despiser, and such an arrow, and he has been loved by millions for his philosophical poetry. Anyone who has stared in complete  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History Part XIII: Karl Marx’s Historical Materialism

October 8, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 6 Comments

The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it. –Karl Marx Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a German philosopher and sociologist whose scientific approach to history, combined with his revolutionary socialism, has made him one of the most influential, famous, and indeed infamous, intellectuals who ever lived. His major works  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History Part XII: Jacob Burckhardt: Civilization, Art, and Power Politics

October 1, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 4 Comments

I know too much of history to expect anything from the despotism of the masses but a future tyranny, which will be the end of history. –Jacob Burckhardt Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897) is the historian who, more than any other, is responsible for the concept of the Renaissance as a distinct historical epoch. Other historians had written about fifteenth- and sixteenth-century  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History Part XI: Alexis de Tocqueville, Liberalism and History

September 24, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 4 Comments

The nations of our day cannot prevent conditions of equality from spreading in their midst. But it depends upon themselves whether equality is to lead to servitude or freedom, knowledge or barbarism, prosperity or wretchedness. –Alexis de Tocqueville Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) was a French politician and political philosopher, and a spokesman for Liberalism in the  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History Part X: Jules Michelet and Romanticism in History

September 17, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 5 Comments

And I, who have sprung from them, I, who have lived, toiled, and suffered with them—who, more than any other have purchased the right to say that I know them—I come to establish against all mankind the personality of the people. –Jules Michelet Leopold von Ranke famously advised his students to write impartial histories. An account of the battle of Waterloo, he said, should be  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History Part IX: Leopold von Ranke and the Origins of the Modern Historical Profession

September 10, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 12 Comments

Only say how it essentially was. (wie es eigentlich gewesen) –Leopold von Ranke The Prussian historian Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886) probably did more than any other individual to establish history in its modern professional form. He was descended from a long line of Lutheran ministers, lived most of his life as a bachelor and (in the best Prussian tradition) a rigidly  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History Part VIII: Hegel’s Dialectic of History

September 3, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 4 Comments

Pure Reason, incapable of any limitation, is the Deity itself. –Hegel Mark Twain is supposed to have said that a classic is a book everyone praises, and no one reads—an observation that we might apply to the works of Georg William Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831). Or perhaps we should say that many people want to read him, but few can understand him. Indeed, the obscurity of  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History Part VII: The Politics of Modernization

August 27, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 4 Comments

Reason obeys itself, and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it. –Thomas Paine Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle. –Edmund Burke Now that we’ve discussed the Revolution, let’s turn to the politics of the Enlightenment for a moment. Between them, Revolution and Enlightenment defined much European history and intellectual life  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History, Part V: Condorcet

August 13, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 4 Comments

The time will come when the sun will shine only upon free men who know no other master but their reason; when tyrants and slaves, priests and their stupid or hypocritical instruments will exist only in works of history and on the stage; and when we shall think of them only to pity their victims and their dupes. –Condorcet Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History, Part IV: Edward Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”

August 6, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 5 Comments

I have recorded the triumph of barbarism and religion. –Edward Gibbon When Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) was 27 years old, he visited Rome and, standing in the ruins of the forum, he imagined he saw the ghosts of Scipio, Caesar, Pompey, and the other heroes of the Republic. He spent days lost in imagination, thrilled simply to walk on the same ground that they had walked. Later,  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History, Part III: Voltaire and the Age of Reason

July 30, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 1 Comment

History should be written as philosophy. –Voltaire Voltaire, in many ways the paradigmatic Enlightenment intellectual, had a lifelong interest in history. And here, as in other fields, he was a severe critic of traditional ways of thinking. He wrote in response to at least two important strains of pre-Enlightenment historical writing. The first was the Augustinian  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History, Part II: Giambattista Vico, Philology, and the Origins of Historicism

July 23, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 3 Comments

The true and the made are convertible. (Verum Factum) The inspiration for Giambattista Vico’s (1668–1744) philosophy of history was the work of Rene Descartes (1596–1650), who boldly declared that he would believe nothing that could not be demonstrated through reason alone. Descartes, like most philosophers before Newton, modeled his thought on geometry—which is to say, he  Continue Reading …

Philosophy of History Part I: The Enlightenment

July 16, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 2 Comments

'Have the courage to use your own understanding,' is therefore the motto of the enlightenment. –Immanuel Kant As for so many other areas of thought, the Enlightenment marks, if not exactly the origins of philosophy of history, at any rate of a characteristically modern approach to it. It will therefore be useful to spend some time with that epoch as a whole, by way of  Continue Reading …

« Previous Page
Next Page »

PEL Live Show 2023

Brothers K Live Show

Citizenship has its Benefits

Become a PEL Citizen
Become a PEL Citizen, and get access to all paywalled episodes, early and ad-free, including exclusive Part 2's for episodes starting September 2020; our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and chat more causally; a community of fellow learners, and more.

Rate and Review

Nightcap

Listen to Nightcap
On Nightcap, listen to the guys respond to listener email and chat more casually about their lives, the making of the show, current events and politics, and anything else that happens to come up.

Subscribe to Email Updates

Select list(s):

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Support PEL

Buy stuff through Amazon and send a few shekels our way at no extra cost to you.

Tweets by PartiallyExLife

Recent Comments

  • Mark Linsenmayer on Ep. 302: Erasmus Praises Foolishness (Part Two)
  • Mark Linsenmayer on Ep. 308: Moore’s Proof of Mind-Independent Reality (Part Two for Supporters)
  • Mark Linsenmayer on Ep. 201: Marcus Aurelius’s Stoicism with Ryan Holiday (Citizen Edition)
  • MartinK on Ep. 201: Marcus Aurelius’s Stoicism with Ryan Holiday (Citizen Edition)
  • Wayne Barr on Ep. 308: Moore’s Proof of Mind-Independent Reality (Part Two for Supporters)

About The Partially Examined Life

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

Become a PEL Citizen!

As a PEL Citizen, you’ll have access to a private social community of philosophers, thinkers, and other partial examiners where you can join or initiate discussion groups dedicated to particular readings, participate in lively forums, arrange online meet-ups for impromptu seminars, and more. PEL Citizens also have free access to podcast transcripts, guided readings, episode guides, PEL music, and other citizen-exclusive material. Click here to join.

Blog Post Categories

  • (sub)Text
  • Aftershow
  • Announcements
  • Audiobook
  • Book Excerpts
  • Citizen Content
  • Citizen Document
  • Citizen News
  • Close Reading
  • Combat and Classics
  • Constellary Tales
  • Exclude from Newsletter
  • Featured Ad-Free
  • Featured Article
  • General Announcements
  • Interview
  • Letter to the Editor
  • Misc. Philosophical Musings
  • Nakedly Examined Music Podcast
  • Nakedly Self-Examined Music
  • NEM Bonus
  • Not School Recording
  • Not School Report
  • Other (i.e. Lesser) Podcasts
  • PEL Music
  • PEL Nightcap
  • PEL's Notes
  • Personal Philosophies
  • Phi Fic Podcast
  • Philosophy vs. Improv
  • Podcast Episode (Citizen)
  • Podcast Episodes
  • Pretty Much Pop
  • Reviewage
  • Song Self-Exam
  • Supporter Exclusive
  • Things to Watch
  • Vintage Episode (Citizen)
  • Web Detritus

Follow:

Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Apple Podcasts

Copyright © 2009 - 2023 · The Partially Examined Life, LLC. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Copyright Policy

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in