TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Montaigne on Historical Anecdotes and Archetypes

Saturday 28 February 2026 is the 493rd anniversary of the birth of Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne (28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592), who was born at the family estate, Château de Montaigne, on this date in 1533.

Michel de Montaigne loved anecdotes and constructed many of his essays around memorable anecdotes. His contemporary, Jean Bodin, wasn’t as enthusiastic, criticizing Plutarch for passing along stories Bodin believed to be “incredible and entirely fabulous.” Montaigne came to Plutarch’s defense, and in so doing revealed a different sensibility about history than that of Bodin.

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

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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #MicheldeMontaigne #JeanBodin #anecdote #archetype #skepticism #pyrrhonism

TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: L. E. J. Brouwer’s Unconventional Methodologies

Friday 27 February 2026 is the 145th anniversary of the birth of Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer (27 February 1881 – 02 December 1966), known to his friends as Bertus and better known to posterity as L. E. J. Brouwer, who was born in Overschie, a neighborhood of Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, on this date in 1881.

Brouwer’s unconventional thinking is valuable to us in several ways. His research in the foundations of mathematics brought to light methodological differences that earlier formal thought hadn’t even noticed. His philosophy of time is proposed as a distinctive source of mathematical thought, and his pessimistic philosophy of life gives us a point of reference as distinctive as his methodology and his metaphysics.

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

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

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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #LEJBrouwer #intuitionism #constructivism #ExcludedMiddle #TertiumNonDatur #time #impredicativity #predicativism #finitism #pessimism

TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Collingwood on Reflexive Epistemology

Sunday 22 February 2026 is the 137th anniversary of the birth of Robin George Collingwood (22 February 1889 - 09 January 1943), better known to posterity as R. G. Collingwood, who was born in Cartmel, just south of the Lake District, on this date in 1889.

As one of the most prominent English language philosophers of history, Collingwood had distinctive views on philosophy and history and how the two come together in philosophy of history. His formulations are characterized by a high degree of reflexivity, and in this episode I consider the epistemic reflexivity of knowing that one knows, and the relation of this kind of reflexive knowledge to history.

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

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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #RGCollingwood #knowledge #epistemology #RobertAckermann #reflexivity #self-knowledge