Abstract
Mark Day offers a lucid treatment of existing approaches to the philosophy of history, exploring subjects that include: the centrality of historical language, objections to historical truth and realism, the relationship between the philosophy of history and the philosophy of science, and much more besides.
Table of Contents
Part I: Evidence for the Past
Chapter One: An introduction to historical practice
1. The Past in the Present
2. The professionalisation of history
3. Relations with the Past
4. Forms of historical production
5. Further Reading and Study Questions
Chapter Two: Historical methodology
1. Scissors and Paste
2. Rules of historical reasoning
3. Peer reviews
4. A philosophical approach to historical reasoning
5. Primary sources
6. Further reading and study questions
Chapter Three: Reasoning from the evidence
1. Bayesianism
2. The limitations of Bayesianism
3. Explanation and interference
4. Unwinding the spool
5. Explanatory virtues
6. The preservation of testimony
7. Further reading and study questions
Part II: History as Science
Chapter Four: Abstraction and laws
1. What’s so great about science?
2. Abstraction and quantification
3. Positivism
4. Laws
5. Against universality
6. Rehabilitating causation
Further reading and study questions
Chapter Five: The Causal sciences
1. Against causation in history
2. Singular causation
3. Causation and contrasts
4. What is historical theory?
5. Justifying historical theories: comparison and contrast
6. Justifying historical theories: explaining how
7. Further reading and study questions
Chapter Six: Theory and particular
1. The historian’s role
2. A priori argument from particularity
3. Applying in general terms
4. The ‘chemical’ sciences
5. Combining theories in practice
6. Narrative and theory
7. Interim conclusion: is naturalism the best account of historical practice?
8. Further reading and study questions
Part III: History and interpretation
Chapter Seven: Feeling and thought
1. Questions in the philosophy of interpretation
2. Empathy
3. Collingwood and re-enactment
4. Living history
5. All history is the history of thought
6. Further reading and study questions
Chapter Eight: Actions, reasons and norms
1. Rationality
2. What is it to act rationally? Instrumentality and re-enactment
3. Meaning and society
4. Social norms
5. The Great Cat Massacre
6. Interim conclusion: interpretation and evidence
7. Further reading and study questions
Part IV: From Interpretation to Discourse
Chapter Nine: Subject and object
1. Historicism
2. Objectivity and evaluation
3. Selection and importance
4. Dialogue Further reading and study questions
Chapter Ten: Narrative
1. What are narratives?
2. Narrative and discourse
3. Metahistory
4. Narrative and truth
5. Collective narrative and metanarrative
6. Further reading and study questions
Part V: Truth and Reality
Chapter Eleven: The absent past
1.Overview: correspondence to reality
2. Overview: anti-realism and justification
3. Beyond statement truth
4. Qualified scepticism: degradation over time
5. Construction of the past
6. Present truth and past truth
7. Further reading and study questions
Chapter Twelve: Undetermination
1.Coherence and choice
2. Bayesianism reconsidered
3. Historiographical disagreement
4. Social construction
5. Linguistic Idealism
6.Practical relations to the past
7. Further reading and study questions
Conclusion
Table of Contents
Part I: Evidence for the Past
Chapter One: An introduction to historical practice
1. The Past in the Present
2. The professionalisation of history
3. Relations with the Past
4. Forms of historical production
5. Further Reading and Study Questions
Chapter Two: Historical methodology
1. Scissors and Paste
2. Rules of historical reasoning
3. Peer reviews
4. A philosophical approach to historical reasoning
5. Primary sources
6. Further reading and study questions
Chapter Three: Reasoning from the evidence
1. Bayesianism
2. The limitations of Bayesianism
3. Explanation and interference
4. Unwinding the spool
5. Explanatory virtues
6. The preservation of testimony
7. Further reading and study questions
Part II: History as Science
Chapter Four: Abstraction and laws
1. What’s so great about science?
2. Abstraction and quantification
3. Positivism
4. Laws
5. Against universality
6. Rehabilitating causation
Further reading and study questions
Chapter Five: The Causal sciences
1. Against causation in history
2. Singular causation
3. Causation and contrasts
4. What is historical theory?
5. Justifying historical theories: comparison and contrast
6. Justifying historical theories: explaining how
7. Further reading and study questions
Chapter Six: Theory and particular
1. The historian’s role
2. A priori argument from particularity
3. Applying in general terms
4. The ‘chemical’ sciences
5. Combining theories in practice
6. Narrative and theory
7. Interim conclusion: is naturalism the best account of historical practice?
8. Further reading and study questions
Part III: History and interpretation
Chapter Seven: Feeling and thought
1. Questions in the philosophy of interpretation
2. Empathy
3. Collingwood and re-enactment
4. Living history
5. All history is the history of thought
6. Further reading and study questions
Chapter Eight: Actions, reasons and norms
1. Rationality
2. What is it to act rationally? Instrumentality and re-enactment
3. Meaning and society
4. Social norms
5. The Great Cat Massacre
6. Interim conclusion: interpretation and evidence
7. Further reading and study questions
Part IV: From Interpretation to Discourse
Chapter Nine: Subject and object
1. Historicism
2. Objectivity and evaluation
3. Selection and importance
4. Dialogue Further reading and study questions
Chapter Ten: Narrative
1. What are narratives?
2. Narrative and discourse
3. Metahistory
4. Narrative and truth
5. Collective narrative and metanarrative
6. Further reading and study questions
Part V: Truth and Reality
Chapter Eleven: The absent past
1.Overview: correspondence to reality
2. Overview: anti-realism and justification
3. Beyond statement truth
4. Qualified scepticism: degradation over time
5. Construction of the past
6. Present truth and past truth
7. Further reading and study questions
Chapter Twelve: Undetermination
1.Coherence and choice
2. Bayesianism reconsidered
3. Historiographical disagreement
4. Social construction
5. Linguistic Idealism
6.Practical relations to the past
7. Further reading and study questions
Conclusion