Kicking Stones, Acts, Processes and Other Events: Essay 3 of Philosophy of History for the Time Being

The third of seven essays on philosophy of history. Until we start to think about what an event is we don't realize what odd things events are. As soon as we start talking about history we imply some theory of events, but we seldom make that theory explicit. So this is not the definitive theory of events; rather it's a description of a theory of events that lurks in ordinary modern historical consciousness. Accordingly this essay offers a kind of taxonomy of events, which classifies events by how we observe them. It also considers the problems of identifying and differentiating one event from another. Basic stuff. Essay 3. Kicking Stones, Acts, Processes and Other Events

A Long Hard Look At An Event, The Latham-Howard Handshake: Essay 4 of Philosophy of History For The Time Being

The fourth essay of Philosophy of History For The Time Being examines a single event to show how wonderfully ambiguous a thing an event can be. It chooses it's example carefully - an event that's very stale news (if you follow Australian politics - otherwise it would never have been news), an event whose identity is maybe almost fixed now as far as definitive history is concerned, but an event that is of such monumental banality that it's a matter of great wonder that it has not disappeared altogether from historical recollection: it's the famous handshake between Mark Latham (Leader of the Opposition) and John Howard (Prime Minister).

Essay 4. A Long Hard Look at an Event, The Latham-Howard Handshake

Philosophy Of History For The Time Being

This is the first of a series of essays and footnotes around the traps of history and philosophy of history. They try to address the questions of philosophy of history, popular or otherwise, but not head on. So they aren't about the History Wars, or whether history is fiction, or about whether 'young people' lack historical consciousness. Instead they are about neglected or misunderstood notions that frame historical consciousness.

I think that important concepts like act, event, fact, truth, narrative, writing, actual footage, media and selection are often used in thinking about history but that they get seldom get the attention they need. Except maybe for cinephiles or media theorists, I doubt whether actual footage is even much thought of as an important concept for the philosophy of history. If only because of the pre-eminent role of media in driving the history of history, I doubt whether there is a more important concept. Because they are all such everyday concepts, they might scarcely seem worthy of philosophy. They look banal not profound. As is the case with many of philosophy’s objects most people think they just understand these things already anyway; they are a birthright and they become the unquestioned building blocks of theories about history rather than being treated as the objects of inquiry. If they have been scrutinised, critique has done its work on them, and now they come with a pretext for disregarding or discarding them. Sometimes I think they are just misunderstood, sometimes misused or abused. When people start to get philosophical about history the terms often seem to be used, unconsciously or in some cases even deliberately, as innocent looking props diverting our attention from theoretical trickery or received doctrine. Even though most of the terms are well known to philosophical reflection, far too much of the serious thought that philosophy has given to them is ignored when philosophising about history.

I have written these essays because I could not find philosophy of history or theories of history that reflected on these concepts to my satisfaction. I’ve written about what I would have liked to read about. I now hope I find a reader who also wants to read about what I wanted to read about.

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Essay 1. Philosophy of History For The Time Being