Philippine E-Journals

Philosophy of History: An Introduction

Emerita S. Quito

Discipline: Philosophy, History

 

Abstract:

While Philosophy and History are ancient disciplines, the Philosophy of History, as a separate discipline, is barely two centuries old. Some contend that it was Giambattista Vieo (1668-1744) who first wrote on a philosophy of history in his Scienza Nuova. Some others claim that Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet, 1694-1778) was the first to allude to the expression in his Dictionnaire Philosophique; while some others give the credit to Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803) for his Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit.

 

For a relatively new discipline, so much has already been written, and anyone who wades through the thick spate of literature cannot but be struck by its awesome dimensions. The problem itself is formidable: one either has to be naive or blind or foolhardy to undertake a further study thereon.