Frank Ankersmit

Franklin Rudolf Ankersmit (born 20 March 1945, Deventer, Netherlands) is a Dutch philosopher who is professor of intellectual history and historical theory at the University of Groningen. Ankersmit, member of the family of textile manufacturers Ankersmit, initially studied physics and mathematics in Leiden for three years and then did his military service. He next studied both history and philosophy at the University of Groningen. In 1981 he took his doctoral degree at that same University with a dissertation entitled Narrative Logic: A Semantic Analysis of the Historian’s Language. In 1986 he was elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). He is founder and was until 2017 chief editor of the Journal of the Philosophy of History promoting a strictly philosophical approach to the reflection on the writing of history. In 1992 he was appointed full professor for intellectual history and philosophy of history at the University of Groningen. His main interests, apart from philosophy of history, are political philosophy, aesthetics and the notion of historical experience (or sensation). The notion of representation is of central importance in his writings focusing on historical, political and aesthetic representation. He published fifteen books (edited books not included) of which many were translated into English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Russian and Chinese. He wrote over two hundred-fifty scientific articles and is member of the editorial board of several journals in his fields of study. With his book on historical experience he won the Socrates challenge cup in 2008. He retired in 2010 and was appointed in that same year Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau by H.M. the Queen of the Netherlands. In 2011 he was granted an Honorary Degree in the Humanities by the University of Ghent and in that same year he was appointed...