Forum Debate on Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen's Postnarrativist Philosophy of Historiography Introduction

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 this new approach look like and what can we expect from it? These are the questions put on the agenda by Kukkanen's Postnarrativist Philosophy of Historiography (2015). In this forum debate five scholars (Brian Fay, Eugen Zelenak, Anton Froeyman, Frank Ankersmit and Daniel Fairbrother) comment on Kuukkanen's book. Pragmatism proves to be an important clue to their findings

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 the existent criticism and polemic about this 'experiential' part of Ankersmit's work; a new analysis of the relationship between Huizinga's 'historical sensation' and Ankersmit's 'historical experience'; Ankersmit's criticism of and attempt to go beyond Rorty and the so-called 'linguistic transcendentalism'; and Ankersmit's point of view on the connection between historical experience and the German historicist tradition

Soberanía y representación política

La Edad Moderna—el periodo comprendido entre 1500 y 1800—co­menzó incorporando al pensamiento político la noción de soberanía y terminó enriqueciéndola con lo que hoy se entiende por representación política. Estas dos nociones han sido consideradas tradicionalmente co­mo los dos pilares que sostienen tanto la democracia moderna como nuestra convicción de que la soberanía popular es lo que convierte a nuestras democracias contemporáneas en el mejor sistema político ja­más concebido. Sin embargo, el gran problema es que la soberanía y la representación política son difíciles de reconciliar entre sí: la relación entre ambas es muy parecida a la que existe entre los dos cónyuges de un matrimonio permanentemente al borde del divorcio. Este ensayo trata de explicar por qué esto es así y por qué Rousseau estaba en lo correcto al insinuarlo en su Contrat social. Para ello, se analizan los aspectos rele­vantes de la historia del pensamiento político desde la Edad Media has­ta los llamados liberales doctrinarios de principios del siglo XIX. Ello permite reconocer una incoherencia fundamental en el corazón mismo de nuestras democracias modernas, así como sus desagradables conse­cuencias para quienes ejercen la función de representantes del pueblo.Modern Time—the period from 1500 to 1800—began by adding to political thought the notion of sovereignty and ended by enriching it with what is nowa­days understood as political representation. These two notions have traditionally been seen as the two pillars supporting both modern democracy and our con­viction that popular sovereignty is what makes our contemporary democracies into the best political system ever conceived. However, the big problem is that sovereignty and political representation are hard to reconcile with each other: the relationship between the two of them is much like that between the two partners in a marriage permanently on the verge of divorce. This essay tries to explain why this is so and why Rousseau was basically right when intimating as much already in his Contrat Social. It does so by considering the relevant aspects in the history of political thought from the Middle Ages down to the so-called doctrinaire liberals of the beginning of the 19th century. Doing so compels us to recognize a basic inconsistency at the very heart of our modern democracies and its nasty consequences for the position of the people’s representatives.La Edad Moderna—el periodo comprendido entre 1500 y 1800—co­menzó incorporando al pensamiento político la noción de soberanía y terminó enriqueciéndola con lo que hoy se entiende por representación política. Estas dos nociones han sido consideradas tradicionalmente co­mo los dos pilares que sostienen tanto la democracia moderna como nuestra convicción de que la soberanía popular es lo que convierte a nuestras democracias contemporáneas en el mejor sistema político ja­más concebido. Sin embargo, el gran problema es que la soberanía y la representación política son difíciles de reconciliar entre sí: la relación entre ambas es muy parecida a la que existe entre los dos cónyuges de un matrimonio permanentemente al borde del divorcio. Este ensayo trata de explicar por qué esto es así y por qué Rousseau estaba en lo correcto al insinuarlo en su Contrat social. Para ello, se analizan los aspectos rele­vantes de la historia del pensamiento político desde la Edad Media has­ta los llamados liberales doctrinarios de principios del siglo XIX. Ello permite reconocer una incoherencia fundamental en el corazón mismo de nuestras democracias modernas, así como sus desagradables conse­cuencias para quienes ejercen la función de representantes del pueblo

Soberanía y representación política

La Edad Moderna—el periodo comprendido entre 1500 y 1800—co­menzó incorporando al pensamiento político la noción de soberanía y terminó enriqueciéndola con lo que hoy se entiende por representación política. Estas dos nociones han sido consideradas tradicionalmente co­mo los dos pilares que sostienen tanto la democracia moderna como nuestra convicción de que la soberanía popular es lo que convierte a nuestras democracias contemporáneas en el mejor sistema político ja­más concebido. Sin embargo, el gran problema es que la soberanía y la representación política son difíciles de reconciliar entre sí: la relación entre ambas es muy parecida a la que existe entre los dos cónyuges de un matrimonio permanentemente al borde del divorcio. Este ensayo trata de explicar por qué esto es así y por qué Rousseau estaba en lo correcto al insinuarlo en su Contrat social. Para ello, se analizan los aspectos rele­vantes de la historia del pensamiento político desde la Edad Media has­ta los llamados liberales doctrinarios de principios del siglo XIX. Ello permite reconocer una incoherencia fundamental en el corazón mismo de nuestras democracias modernas, así como sus desagradables conse­cuencias para quienes ejercen la función de representantes del pueblo.Modern Time—the period from 1500 to 1800—began by adding to political thought the notion of sovereignty and ended by enriching it with what is nowa­days understood as political representation. These two notions have traditionally been seen as the two pillars supporting both modern democracy and our con­viction that popular sovereignty is what makes our contemporary democracies into the best political system ever conceived. However, the big problem is that sovereignty and political representation are hard to reconcile with each other: the relationship between the two of them is much like that between the two partners in a marriage permanently on the verge of divorce. This essay tries to explain why this is so and why Rousseau was basically right when intimating as much already in his Contrat Social. It does so by considering the relevant aspects in the history of political thought from the Middle Ages down to the so-called doctrinaire liberals of the beginning of the 19th century. Doing so compels us to recognize a basic inconsistency at the very heart of our modern democracies and its nasty consequences for the position of the people’s representatives.La Edad Moderna—el periodo comprendido entre 1500 y 1800—co­menzó incorporando al pensamiento político la noción de soberanía y terminó enriqueciéndola con lo que hoy se entiende por representación política. Estas dos nociones han sido consideradas tradicionalmente co­mo los dos pilares que sostienen tanto la democracia moderna como nuestra convicción de que la soberanía popular es lo que convierte a nuestras democracias contemporáneas en el mejor sistema político ja­más concebido. Sin embargo, el gran problema es que la soberanía y la representación política son difíciles de reconciliar entre sí: la relación entre ambas es muy parecida a la que existe entre los dos cónyuges de un matrimonio permanentemente al borde del divorcio. Este ensayo trata de explicar por qué esto es así y por qué Rousseau estaba en lo correcto al insinuarlo en su Contrat social. Para ello, se analizan los aspectos rele­vantes de la historia del pensamiento político desde la Edad Media has­ta los llamados liberales doctrinarios de principios del siglo XIX. Ello permite reconocer una incoherencia fundamental en el corazón mismo de nuestras democracias modernas, así como sus desagradables conse­cuencias para quienes ejercen la función de representantes del pueblo

We Are History: The Outlines of a Quasi-Substantive Philosophy of History

In times of a felt need to justify the value of the humanities, the need to revisit and re-establish the public relevance of the discipline of history cannot come as a surprise. On the following pages I will argue that this need is unappeasable by scholarly proposals. The much desired revitalization of historical writing lies instead in reconciling ourselves with the dual meaning of the word history, in exploring the necessary interconnection between history understood as the course of events and as historical writing. Despite the general tendency of the last decades to forbid philosophizing about history in the former sense (at least in departments of history and philosophy), I think that to a certain extent we already do so without succumbing to substantive thought. We already have the sprouts of a speculative although only quasi-substantive philosophy of history that nevertheless takes seriously the postwar criticism of the substantive enterprise. In this essay I will first try to outline this quasi-substantive philosophy of history that attests to the historical sensibility of our times; and second, I will try to outline its consequences regarding history as historical writing. Finally, in place of a conclusion I will suggest that historical writing is not as much a contribution to public agendas as it is the very arena in which public life is at stake

Electoral Dioramas: On the Problem of Representation in Voting Advice Applications

Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) are online tools designed to help citizens decide how to vote. They typically offer their users a representation of what is at stake in an election by matching user preferences on issues with those of parties or candidates. While the use of VAAs has boomed in recent years in both established and new democracies, this new phenomenon in the electoral landscape has received little attention from political theorists. The current academic debate is focused on epistemic aspects of the question how a VAA can adequately represent electoral politics. We argue that conceptual and normative presuppositions at play in the background of the tool are at least as important. Even a well-developed VAA does not simply reflect what is at stake in the election by neutrally passing along information. Rather, it structures political information in a way that is informed by the developers’ presuppositions. Yet, these presuppositions remain hidden if we interpret the tool as a mirror that offers the user a reflection of him/herself situated within the political landscape. VAAs should therefore be understood as electoral dioramas, staged according to a contestable picture of politics