The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of historical knowledge and the meaning and structure of the past, drawing on continental European thought, Anglo-American analytic philosophy, and historiographical practice alike. It asks what history is even made of, individual actions, social structures, periods and civilizations, or large causal processes, and how, if at all, historians can know the past objectively rather than merely construct a narrative about it.
Facts
Central QuestionWhat does history consist of, individual actions, social structures, periods and regions, civilizations, large causal processes, or divine intervention, and how can it be known? 1 Key DebateNarrativism against historical objectivism: whether every account of a major historical event is one narrative among several apparently incompatible ones with no rational basis for judging one truer or better supported than another, as narrativists suggest, or whether historians can in principle establish which of two competing accounts is closer to what actually happened. 1 Disputed
Key DebateWhether history exhibits any overall pattern or direction: philosophers of history from Hegel and Marx to Fukuyama have proposed universal historical patterns, while critics from Karl Popper onward hold that no law-governed pattern of historical development can be established and that such historicism mistakes a narrative for a law. 2 Karl Popper's The Poverty of Historicism named and attacked the very idea of a law-governed pattern of history that Hegel, Marx and later Fukuyama each proposed in different forms. Connections
Associated With
Source History, Philosophy of (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Source History, Philosophy of (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Archaeology's core questions of evidence and historical inference are treated as a branch of, or immediate neighbor to, philosophy of history in the live literature (Collingwood himself worked in both).
Includes
Source History, Philosophy of (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Sources
1. History, Philosophy of (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIntroduction
What does history consist of - individual actions, social structures, periods and regions, civilizations, large causal processes, divine intervention?
Section 3.4
Does narrativism force the reader to adopt the view that there are alternative and apparently incompatible narratives about the same major events in history, and there is no rational basis for judging that one account is more true, or better supported by the available evidence, than another?
- Associated With: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
- Associated With: Karl Marx
Includes: Immanuel Kant, entry: History, Philosophy of, Section 2.2
Rousseau (1762a; 1762b) and Kant (1784-5; 1784-6) brought some of these assumptions about rationality and progress into their political philosophies
View the Source 2. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and Informations.v. Philosophy of HistoryQuote, s.v. Philosophy of History
The concept of history plays a fundamental role in human thought. It invokes notions of human agency, change, the role of material circumstances in human affairs, and the putative meaning of historical events.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.