Dantian Foundations in Frank Ankersmit’s Philosophy of History

Abstract The article aims to illustrate the Dantian roots of Ankersmit’s representational philosophy of history. The parallel between the two philosophers is explored in J. M. Kuukkanen’s Postnarrativist Philosophy of Historiography (2015) and M. Tamm and E. Zeleňak’s “In a Parallel World” (2018). This relationship is also evident in Ankersmit’s essays “Danto, History, and The Tragedy of Human Existence” (2007) and “Danto’s Philosophy of History in Retrospective” (2009). This connection highlights Ankersmit’s development of the logic of representation, expressed as a ‘three-place’ operational function, which leads to a narrative approach to history grounded in a conception that acknowledges both the role of the past and the retrospective nature of historical accounts.