Jacob Burckhardt and the Elusiveness of Historical Understanding

TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Jacob Burckhardt and the Elusiveness of Historical Understanding

Saturday 25 May 2024 is the 206th anniversary of the birth of Carl Jacob Christoph Burckhardt (25 May 1818 to 08 August 1897), who was born in Basel, Switzerland, on this date in 1818.

Burckhardt was an historian, but also an elusive thinker who seemed to capture something more than history while explicitly foreswearing any engagement with philosophy of history. The most compact statement of his views is to be found in a short work of interconnected remarks, “Fortune and Misfortune in History,” but drawing any lesson of history from this is as seemingly elusive as any lesson to be found in his purely historical works.

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