Abstract

In this text, I deal with Universal History as a specific form of substantive philosophy of history that distinguishes itself from the historical sciences through certain ontological, epistemic, and formal principles. Ontologically, Universal History sees history as single whole that is unified by some unfolding principle that strives towards an end. This end is the Meaning of history, and the process towards it is to be represented in the form of a single interconnected story. Epistemically, universal historians use non-historiographic, a-priori, and introspective methods to establish these characteristics and the supposed Meaning of history. In particular, I discuss the theories of history of Saint Augustine and Bossuet, Kant and Schiller, and Big History as different forms of Universal History (theological, Enlightenment, supposedly scientific). What they all have in common is that as Universal History they are not based on the evidentiary methods of the modern historical sciences and therefore do not produce knowledge of the past. Big History, though, is not just a form of Universal History, it also constitutes a proper historiographic approach and research programme.