Abstract
Originally published as Introduction à la philosophie de l'histoire (Paris: Gallimard, 1938).
Aron proclaims, contra the positivism of #Langlois and Seignobos, the "dissolution of the object" (118). In Aron's view understanding "is never a direct intuition but always a reconstruction"; it is "always more than simple empathy" (Ricoeur's gloss, #Time and Narrative, 1:97). "Historical reality "does not exist ready made, to be subsequently reproduced faithfully by science" (118).
Compare with Danto's similar argument in #Narration and Knowledge. Historians deal in probabilities; their logic is closer to that of the judge than of the scientist. "For Aron, the philosophical stake . . . was the destruction of every retrospective illusion of fatality and the opening of the theory of history to the spontaneity of action oriented toward the future" (Time and Narrative, 1:98)
Aron proclaims, contra the positivism of #Langlois and Seignobos, the "dissolution of the object" (118). In Aron's view understanding "is never a direct intuition but always a reconstruction"; it is "always more than simple empathy" (Ricoeur's gloss, #Time and Narrative, 1:97). "Historical reality "does not exist ready made, to be subsequently reproduced faithfully by science" (118).
Compare with Danto's similar argument in #Narration and Knowledge. Historians deal in probabilities; their logic is closer to that of the judge than of the scientist. "For Aron, the philosophical stake . . . was the destruction of every retrospective illusion of fatality and the opening of the theory of history to the spontaneity of action oriented toward the future" (Time and Narrative, 1:98)