Five Are Executed at Salem for Witchcraft

TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Five Are Executed at Salem for Witchcraft

On Tuesday 19 August 1692—333 years ago today—five persons accused, tried, and found guilty of witchcraft were hanged, probably at Procter’s Ledge in Salem, Massachusetts. Was this an historical anomaly, an exception to what we should expect in the course of human events, or was it, rather, a predictable instance of mass hysteria driven by a moral panic? Is it, in fact, so predictable that we find ourselves acting out a script of cyclical history despite our insistence upon our free will and historical agency?

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#philosophy #history #PhilosophyofHistory #witchcraft #Salem #witchcraze #hysteria #MoralPanic #Trevor-Roper #CyclicalHistory