Abstract
The approach that philosophers have taken to history has too often been one-dimensional. It is my aim in this paper to map out a future multi-dimensional philosophy of history, by invoking the notion of a relation with the past, and by arguing for the philosophical relevance of multiple such relations.
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Notes
This paper benefited from discussion at the workshop for the future of the philosophy of history, held at Queen’s University, Belfast, in May of 2007. I would also like to thank two anonymous referees for their constructive and useful criticism of this paper.
The tension between Bayesianism and precision is perhaps most easily demonstrated, given the prima facie inverse relation between precision and probability. That inverse relation highlighted by Karl Popper, when he noted that the imprecise predictions of (e.g.) astrologists were more likely to be confirmed than the precise predictions of (e.g.) physicists. Similarly, while it is impossible for evidence to render ‘there were some Cathars in Montaillou’ less likely than ‘there were seven Cathars in Montaillou’, the first proposition is not therefore necessarily more historically acceptable.
I do not agree with that argument, though given that it is incidental to my current topic I do not here substantiate that criticism.
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Day, M. Our Relations with the Past. Philosophia 36, 417–427 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-008-9127-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-008-9127-7