The Exemplifying Past : A Philosophy of History

This book addresses a wide range of philosophical problems about history and the semantics of time. The point of departure is the distinction between events under the description of past witnesses and their contemporaries and events under the description of historians. Its main claim is that a thesis on the past is exemplified rather than being justified by the available evidence. Such thesis, the book argues, retroactively becomes concrete in the past under consideration. This book will not only appeal to philosophers and historians, but to students and scholars across the humanities.

This volume approaches three key concepts in Roman history - gender, memory and identity - and demonstrates the significance of their interaction in all social levels and during all periods of Imperial Rome. When societies, as well as individuals, form their identities, remembrance and references to the past play a significant role.

Contents Preface 1. Introduction: Retroaction, Indeterminacy, and Seeing-in 2. Periods and Other Minds 3. Narrative Truth 4. Resemblance, Substitution, Expression 5. Exemplification 6. Danto’s End of Art Bibliography Index