Talk:Universal history

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This is a great article, but it reads like a copyright violation. Professional article. Uploaded by an anonymous user who has no history on Wikipedia. Please keep an eye out. Stbalbach 03:50, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I wrote this article. My name is Gerald Phillip Leb. email: gerryleb@mac.com. I am a graduate of the University of Michigan (1978) with High Honors in History. I have also been trained as a professional historian, although illness prevented receipt of a graduate degree in the field. My mentors as a professional historian were Dr. Stephen Tonsor of the University of Michigan and Dr. Constance Bouchard of the University of Akron. I am a licensed attorney in the State of Ohio. I wrote this article from information in my own head, so to speak, and plan on including references to published materials in the near future.

Please do not delete my stub. Revise it, but do not delete it. Universal History is the problem child of modern historiography. It needs reference in your magnificent encyclopedia. I have logged in (obviously I am in the middle of the learning curve on this site) to support my bona fides. my login: Gavriel Pesach.

Ok thank you Gavriel for the confirmation, I will remove the copyright notice. Sometimes some things seem too good to be true, and it was from an anonymous user with no posting history. Thanks again. I will link to it from other articles the opportunity arises. Stbalbach 16:43, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ranke

I don't agree that Ranke was a positivist in contradiction with postmodernism. Ranke and postmodernism share a view that texts have limits for interpretations based on the language and intention of writers and readers. Writing history like Marx or Weber did would be declined by both Ranke and postmodernism, because the wide scope of the analysis could never describe the way it was.--Daanschr 16:26, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ranke

This comment has some validity, but the community of historians, the guild of academic historians, if you will, considers Ranke to be a positivist in contradistinction to postmodern thinkers. Gavriel Pesach

Ranke is mentioned in the chapters about hermeneutics in De Constructie van het Verleden, a book about the philosophy of history, and not in chapters about positivism.--Daanschr 15:05, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Look, I agree with you. I, personally, do not like classifying Ranke as a positivist. But the consensus of academic opinion differs. The reason: Ranke is still the "father," if you will, of that school of philosophy of history that assumes one can go beyond text to an existent referent. In other words, most academic historians that are not avowed postmodernists assume that they can describe "what really happened." They do not enjoy talking about this assumption, but it is implicit in all mainstream historical narrative. Gavriel Pesach 15:45, 1 March 2006

[edit] No mention of Kant

Maybe someone would like to research Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose by Immanuel Kant Jgold03 21:50, 28 January 2007 (UTC)