The concept of scientific history / Isaiah Berlin -- The limits of scientific history / W.H. Walsh -- The objectivity of history / J.A. Passmore -- Explanation in science and in history / C.G. Hempel -- The Popper-Hempel theory reconsidered / Alan Donagan -- The autonomy of historical understanding / Louis O. Mink -- Historical continuity and causal analysis / Michael Oakeshott -- Causal judgment in history and in the law / H.L.A. Hart and A.M. Honoré -- Causes, connections and (...) conditions in history / Michael Scriven -- The historical individual / A.C. Danto -- Methodological individualisms : definition and reduction / May Brodbeck -- Societal laws / Maurice Mandelbaum -- Determinism in history / Ernest Nagel. (shrink)

This update of the original version focuses on six central problems in the critical philosophy of history and explores the connections among them. Starting with the fundamentals of each philosophical topic in history and then delving into the specifics of each to better understand the surrounding issues, the reference first offers a comprehensive introduction into these topics then covers explanation and understanding ... objectivity and value judgment .. causes in history ... the nature and role of narrative ... and historical (...) determinism. Suitable for students, professors, and anyone else interested in the philosophy of history. (shrink)

Some years ago, in the course of a general critique of what has sometimes been referred to as the covering law theory of explanation, I made the claim that perfectly satisfactory explanations can often be provided by indicating only one or a few necessary conditions, where we remain ignorant of the sufficient conditions, of what we nevertheless claim to understand. What seemed to me one identifiable type of such explanations I called “explaining how-possibly,” because it was a type more naturally (...) given in response to the question how it could be that a certain thing happened than to the more familiar question why it did so. In the present paper I propose to review certain objections to this thesis which have come to my attention in the interval, and to make such concessions as these seem to require. In fact, the concessions will be minor, since the general thesis still seems to me quite defensible. (shrink)

This book explains and defends a central ideas in the theory of history put forward by R. G. Collingwood, perhaps the foremost philosopher of history in the 20th century. Professor Dray analyses critically the idea of re-enactment, explores the limits of its applicability, and determines its relationship to other key Collingwoodian ideas, such as the role of imagination in historical thinking, and the indispensability of a point of view.

There is no necessary connection between the ideas of history and of narration. The historical work should be explanatory, but a narrative is not itself a form of explanation. Walsh, despite Danto's objections, is correct in distinguishing "plain" from "significant" narratives. Both White's causal-chain model and Danto's model of causal input suggest that an historical narrative can be eq~planatory only if it offers causal explanation. But Gallie's followable contingency model contains several structural ideas which bring him into logical conflict with (...) the claims of these causal models. According to Gallie, explanations are intrusive, required only by failure of narrative continuity. A narrative becomes explanatory when it can incorporate contingencies, which may be necessary conditions instead of causes. History, unlike science, strives for synthetic unity rather than for the removal of all contingency from its subject matter. The role narrative plays in achieving this unity deserves increased philosophic attention. (shrink)

This book deals with theoretical problems that arise at points of contact between the concerns of philosophers and historians about the practice of ...

Central to R. G. Collingwood's philosophy of history, and among the most controvrsial of his doctrines, is the contention that historical understanding requires a re-anactment of past experience or a re-thinking of past thought. Some critics have found this contention in it-self incoherent or otherwise unsatisfactory, even as applied to what Collingwood apparently regarded as paradigm cases of historical thinking: for example, accounting for Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon in terms of his political ambitions. Others, while accepting the applicability of (...) notions like re-enactment and re-thinking to such cases, have nevertheless rejected them as a basis for a general theory of historical understanding on the ground that their range of application is too narrow to encompass anything like the normal concerns of historians. In particular, these notions have been held to throw little light on what historians have had to say about largescale social events, conditions and processes. (shrink)

J. H. Hexter, an American historian of early seventeenth-century history, terms himself whiggish and claims whiggishness is returning after the misguided popularity of Marxism. The distinction "whiggish" is more elusive than his claim suggests, and the accuracy of its application to Hexter's claim is unclear. Three characteristics commonly assigned to whig interpretation by its critics can be seen as reflections of broader, unresolved historical issues. These are: attention to political and constitutional issues; a tendency to refer to the present in (...) interpreting the past; and a belief in inevitability. It is difficult to ascertain whether Hexter's attention to political matters is a result of his view of them as intrinsically important to historical inquiry or as particularly relevant to historical accounts of Stuart England. The charge of presentism cannot confidently be made against him, as he is not guilty of anything as crude as anachronism, and subtle presentism is neither avoidable nor necessarily reprehensible. Inevitabilism is not only difficult to define, it is not displayed by Hexter. If he displays the weaknesses of whiggishness it is only through implication, in the body of ideas underlying his text. (shrink)

A. J. P. Taylor's book, The Origins of the Second World War, has generated substantial criticism from historians. However, Taylor and his critics agree on many aspects of causality. At least four models of the cause versus condition, argument can be discerned in the work of both Taylor and his critics. The first is the "traditional" theory that the war was caused by a single man, Adolf Hitler. A second issue concerns what it means to say that Hitler "intended" to (...) take certain actions. The third is to what extent conditions forced the occurrence of particular events. The final conception of cause revealed is the notion of a condition which is sufficient to effect a result. Though Taylor seems to arrive at this position, he does not offer any opinion on the sufficient conditions themselves. (shrink)

Cette traduction rend disponible en langue française un précis qui a rendu de grands services aux étudiants depuis 1963 comme introduction à la philosophie analytique de l'histoire. A l'orientation bibliographique sommaire de l'édition initiale, on a ajouté une bibliographie sélective plus considérable d'ouvrages parus après 1963. [SDM].

Dray: Mandelbaum legislates regarding the historian's "task" in the guise of descriptive analysis. He seems to envisage two fundamental tasks for the historian: explaining, and relating parts to wholes. Contrary to Mandelbaum's implication, there is no more opposition between narration and either of these tasks than there is between the two tasks themselves.Ely: Mandelbaum refutes White and Danto, who both hold that historical writing is essentially narrative; but not Gallie, who asserts that historical writing is necessarily, but never solely, a (...) narrative construction. The claim that history is essentially narrative is fruitful even though false because it recognizes an important characteristic of historical thinking - the historian's conceptual isolation of a series of intentional human actions from the situations with which they were designed to cope.Gruner: Mandelbaurn is correct in his criticism of narrativism, but does not support his criticism by good reasons. Historians offer both static, non-narrative descriptions and kinetic, narrative descriptions. Historical description is therefore not the same as historical narration; the latter is only a species of the former. (shrink)

"L'auteur discute ici certaines grandes questions qui préoccupent aujourd'hui les philosophes de l'histoire en Grande-Bretagne et aux Etats-Unis. Dans chaque cas, il analyse le point de vue d'un philosophe ou d'un historien bien connu: R. G. Collingwood, Charles Beard, J. W. N. Watkins, A. J. P. Taylor et O. Spengler.

Lorsqu'on cherche à comprendre l'enjeu des discussions actuelles entre les philosophes anglophones de l'histoire, l'on est fatalement conduit, à un moment ou l'autre, à étudier les vues de R.G. Collingwood. Depuis la publication en 1946 de son livre posthumeL'Idée de l'histoire, les idées de Collingwood ont été à la fois un stimulant et une source de problèmes constants pour ceux qui se préoccupent de définir l'histoire comme mode d'investigation rationnelle. Au cours des trois dernières décennies, la littérature aussi bien critique (...) qu'exégétique consacrée à son œuvre s'est développée à un point tel qu'il est devenu difficile d'ignorer ses idées. (shrink)