ORIGAMI PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

Martin Jay

History and Theory 65, no. 1 (2026)

Review article on Representation: The Birth of Historical Reality from the Death of the Past, by Franklin Rudolf Ankersmit (Columbia University Press, 2024).

Drawing on Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's monadological metaphysics, with its nominalist emphasis on the integrity of the individual, the eminent Dutch philosopher of history Franklin Rudolf Ankersmit proposes a radically new interpretation of the way historical representations create “historical reality” based on the “death” of the no longer actual past. Representation: The Birth of Historical Reality from the Death of the Past is an unapologetically baroque exercise that seeks to fashion a unified argument by drawing on the most diverse of elements. Gilles Deleuze's emphasis on the importance of the “fold” in his study of Leibniz and the baroque gives us an insight into the origami figure that results, a figure that is circular, closed on itself, and impermeable. After attempting to reconstruct the logic of Ankersmit's convoluted argument, this review article raises questions about his claim that the past can ever be unequivocally “dead,” his reliance on Leibniz's “principle of sufficient reason” to justify “historical rationality,” and his hope that historicism can be revived on the basis of a monadological metaphysics.

Photo by julien Tromeur on Unsplash‍.