Contingency in philosophy and history, 1650–1800. Issue 3 (16th March 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Silver, Sean
• Is Part Of: Textual practice. Volume 32:Issue 3(2018)
• Page Start: 419
• Page End: 436
• Publication Date: 2018-03-16
• Subjects: Contingency -- complexity -- John Dryden -- Thomas Hobbes -- Horace Walpole -- Laurence Sterne; Literature, Modern -- 20th century -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Criticism -- Periodicals; Criticism, Textual -- Periodicals; Semiotics -- Periodicals; 801.95
• DOI: 10.1080/0950236X.2018.1442391
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0950-236X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This essay traces the history of a narrative and historiographic tension, of the inevitability that only appears after the fact. It offers a history of 'contingency', the modern affect that accompanies effects, the double-sensation of the inevitability of historical necessity with the knowledge that things might have been different. Tracing contingency through the literature and history of eighteenth-century Europe, it examines the historical development of one influential strategy whereby time turned up as an epistemological problem – and as a powerful technique leveraged by novelists and historians alike. Authors considered include John Dryden, Thomas Hobbes, Blaise Pascal, Adrien Richer, Frederick II, Horace Walpole, and Laurence Sterne.