TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Tom Paine and the Rights of Man

Monday 09 February 2026 is the 289th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; 09 February 1737 [O.S. 29 January 1736 – 08 June 1809), who was born Thetford, a town in Norfolk, on this date 1737.

Paine was centrally involved in the great historical events of his time, playing a prominent role in both the American and French revolutions. He wrote in a letter to George Washington, “A share in two revolutions is living to some purpose.” Paine did indeed live to some purpose, and his thought can’t be meaningfully distinguished from the purposes for which he lived. To discuss one is to discuss the other.

Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/

Discord: https://discord.gg/AHVsXpJFGG

Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/

#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #ThomasPaine #CommonSense #RightsofMan #NaturalRights #EdmundBurke #FrenchRevolution #deism #HumanRights #AmericanRevolution

TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Proclus and the Axiomatic Conception of Knowledge

Sunday 08 February 2026 is the 1,614th anniversary of the birth of Proclus Lycius (08 February 412 – 17 April 485), who was born in Constantinople, then the capital of the eastern Roman Empire, now Istanbul and the largest city in Turkey, on this date in AD 412. Proclus was among the last of the philosophers who made up the Golden Chain of the succession of scholarchs of the Platonic Academy in Athens.

In writing A Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements Proclus brought together axiomatics and Greek philosophy, making himself the first philosopher of mathematics. I argue that this was a crucial and formative moment in the history of Western civilization, and I consider the theses of the Great Divergence and the High-Level Equilibrium Trap from this perspective.

Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/

Discord: https://discord.gg/AHVsXpJFGG

Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/

#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #Proclus #ProclusLycius #axiomatics #Euclid #GreatDivergence #HighLevelEquilibriumTrap #PhilosophyofMathematics #neoplatonism

TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Ingarden on Time and Modes of Being

Thursday 05 February 2026 is the 133rd anniversary of the birth of Roman Witold Ingarden (05 February 1893 – 14 June 1970), who was born in Kraków, then the Grand Duchy of Cracow, which was then part of Austria-Hungary, on this date in 1893.

Ingarden’s major work was The Controversy over the Existence of the World (1947-1948), an excerpt of which was translated as Time and Modes of Being (1964), with the whole work being translated only relatively recently. Ingarden uses time to focus his discussion of the divide between realism and idealism, and I use Ingarden’s discussion of time to focus on the nature of history.

Quora: https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/

Discord: https://discord.gg/AHVsXpJFGG

Links: https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/

#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #RomanIngarden #phenomenology #idealism #realism #ModesofBeing #time #PhilosophyofTime