Although the topics discussed above occupied a central position in 20th-century critical discussion, they represent only a sample of the issues with which analytical philosophers of history were concerned: other problems that attracted attention related to the freedom and responsibility of historical agents, the nature and description of historical events, and the role of narrative in history. Here, as elsewhere, the approach adopted often produced results of considerable interest, throwing a revealing light on features of historical inquiry that are easily missed or ignored by theorists in the grip of some powerful dogma or ideology. Even so, it perhaps was accompanied by a too-ready acquiescence in the view that history is “in order as it is,” the philosopher’s function being confined to offering a purely descriptive elucidation of typical modes of historical thought and argument. In accepting this conception of their role, analytical philosophers of history no doubt were partly, and understandably, influenced by a desire to avoid emulating the heady ambitions of their speculative predecessors. Yet, normative questions regarding the validity or adequacy of established procedures within any domain can always be legitimately raised; in the case of history, there seems to be no compelling reason to assume that such problems necessarily lie beyond the scope of philosophical criticism and appraisal. Patrick Lancaster Gardiner
Citation Information
Article Title: Philosophy of history
Website Name: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published: 16 June 2017
URL: https://www.britannica.com/topic/philosophy-of-history
Access Date: August 19, 2019
Additional Reading
Robin G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (1946), is a classical contribution to the critical theory of history; Karl R. Popper, The Poverty of Historicism (1957), provides an influential critique of types of historical speculation; and M.C. Lemon, Philosophy of History: A Guide for Students (2003), is a good introduction. Patrick L. Gardiner, The Nature of Historical Explanation, 3rd ed. (1967); William H. Dray, Laws and Explanation in History (1957); Peter Winch, The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy (1958); and Morton G. White, Foundations of Historical Knowledge (1965), are four analytical discussions relating to historical knowledge and understanding. Frank E. Manuel, Shapes of Philosophical History (1965), is a brief but reliable survey of the development of speculative theories. William Dray, Perspectives in History (1980), is an explorative collection of essays on particular theorists of history; Anthony Giddens, A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism: Power, Property, and the State (1982), offers an alternative interpretation of history based upon contemporary anthropological research; Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth and History (1981), is a discussion of the nature of truth, knowledge, and order, especially the dichotomy between objective and subjective views of truth; Lawrence Stone, The Past and the Present (1981), is an examination of historiographic methodology; and John W. Miller, The Philosophy of History with Reflections and Aphorisms (1981), is an original personal reflection on history as a human science. A useful anthology on contemporary themes is F.R. Ankersmit and Hans Kellner (eds.), A New Philosophy of History (1995).
Discussions of special issues appear in Mark Blitz, Heidegger’s Being and Time and the Possibility of Political Philosophy (1981); Alfred Schmidt, History and Structure: An Essay on Hegelian-Marxist and Structuralist Theories of History (1982; originally published in German, 1971); Edmund E. Jacobitti, Revolutionary Humanism and Historicism in Modern Italy (1981); and Eugene Webb, Eric Voegelin: Philosopher of History (1981).