One of the most quoted lines in philosophy is completely misused and misunderstood
- sciart0
- Sep 25
- 1 min read
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Hegel once wrote (roughly): “We learn from history that we do not learn from history.” And it’s one of the most common quotes about history you can read.
The problem is that people think this is about not learning from mistakes, when actually Hegel was talking about how few things we can actually take from history lessons.
That doesn’t mean we can’t use history and apply it for today. In this week’s Mini Philosophy interview, Mary Beard and Charlotte Higgins teach us how we can learn from the ancient world.