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The Significance of the Past

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 August 2021

GUY KAHANE
GUY KAHANE*
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORDguy.kahane@philosophy.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract

The past is deeply important to many of us. But our concern about history can seem puzzling and needs justification. After all, the past cannot be changed: we can help the living needy, but the tears we shed for the long dead victims of past tragedies help no one. Attempts to justify our concern about history typically take one of two opposing forms. It is assumed either that such concern must be justified in instrumental or otherwise self-centered and present-centered terms or that our interest in history must be utterly disinterested and pursued for its own sake. But neither approach can fully explain, or justify, our concern about the past. I propose a third approach, on which the past matters because it contains much that is of value—all those past people and the things they did or had endured—and this value calls for our fitting response. In short: the significance of the past is past significance.

Keywords

historythe pastvalueethicsbackward-looking reasonsfitting attitudes
Type
Article
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , Winter 2021 , pp. 582 - 600
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Philosophical Association

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Footnotes

I am very grateful to Saul Smilansky and to several anonymous referees for extremely helpful comments.

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