Discussions on Marc Bloch usually focus on The Annales School, his comparative method, or his defence of a distinct historical science. In contrast, I emphasise his seldom-investigated ideas of what historical understanding should involve. I contend that Bloch distinguishes between three different ethical attitudes in studying people and ways of life from the past: scientific passivity; critical judgements; understanding. The task of the historian amounts to understanding other worlds in their own terms. This essay is (...) an exploration of Bloch’s methodology and what historical understanding is needed to do justice to cultures that belong to the past, both conceptually and practically. (shrink)

This essay describes and compares three attempts to provide accounts of the nature of historical consciousness, along with accompanying explanations of how one comes to have historical knowledge. It explores, compares, and contrasts the views of the late Qing dynasty Chinese philosopher Zhang Xuecheng 章學誠 and two Western philosophers – R.G. Collingwood and Louis O. Mink . These three thinkers all present historical understanding as a distinctive type of knowledge and share the aim of defending the (...) discipline of history as a special, independent field of intellectual endeavor. Aside from analyzing these aspects of their respective theories, this essay aims to stimulate extensive and nuanced comparisons between Chinese and more recent Western forms of historical consciousness. While the comparison presented here is but one way forward, it not only seeks to offer specific insights generated by the comparative project but also to set forth a range of themes worthy of future study. For example, the analysis presented here shows that Zhang’s reflections on how historians relate to the past can contribute to current discussions of epistemic virtues. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the kind of historical understanding presupposed in the writing of classical Chinese Ch'an Buddhist "transmission" narratives and places this historical understanding into comparative juxtaposition with modern Western historiographic practice. It finds that fundamental to Chinese Ch'an historical awareness are genealogical metaphors structuring historical time and meaning in terms of generations of family relations and the practices of inheritance. These metaphors link the Ch'an historian to the texts of historical study in (...) ways that contrast with the posture of modern historians. The essay outlines four basic differences between the self-understanding presupposed in Ch'an Buddhist historical writing and that assumed in modern historical research and concludes by suggesting how contemporary historical thinking might benefit from reflection on these differences. (shrink)

Can social scientific description capture the historically individual? Is the idea of an ethically committed social science morally defensible? This book offers a critical, historically-grounded perspective on these perennial methodological and ethical problems, in their current forms. It provides a series of in-depth examinations of recent work by prominent authors in sociology and philosophy. The book draws on the thought of Peter Winch to provide a coherent response to the core issues that underlie past and present debate in social science (...) and to provide a solid basis for future inquiry. The book will be of particular interest to social scientists, philosophers, and historians, and to anyone seeking a clear grasp of the demands made by historical understanding and ethics on the study of society. (shrink)

On received philosophical doctrine, history is simply methodologically immature. History's autonomy can be established not by showing scientific explanations impossible for "history," but by coupling a demonstration that hypothetico-deductive explanation cannot exhaustively analyze historical knowledge with a critique of the proto-science view's assumption that legitimate modes of understanding must be analyzable by an explicit methodology. Certain views historians accept, e.g., that events are unique, while inadequate as a general theory of events, reveal historical understanding's distinctive feature: (...) synoptic judgment, which, irreducible to analytic techniques, interprets a complex process as a function of component events, their interrelationships, importance, and context. (shrink)

This volume provides a very important contribution to the growing literature on the thought of Wilhelm Dilthey. The discussion throughout is informed by careful scholarship, knowledge of historical backgrounds, and critical insight into the importance of the topics examined.

Introduction: Between Crisis and Closure One of the truisms of the history of French philosophy is that it was the importation of German philosophy, ...

Arthur Danto invokes his philosophy of history to authorize a reading of Nietzsche that his philosophy of history nevertheless undermines. Danto's Nietzsche was a system builder, for, “if only tacitly,” he submitted his thinking to the demands of the philosophical “discipline,” “where there is no such thing as an isolated solution to an isolated problem”. In his Analytical Philosophy of History, Danto invents a character he dubs “the Ideal Chronicler.” Danto's notion of a narrative sentence clarifies his idea that (...) class='Hi'>historical understanding is retrospective; that it is a matter of assigning significance to earlier events in light of later ones – thus, a matter of placing earlier events within a story we wish to tell. Danto attributes the structural coherence of Nietzsche's writings both to historical understanding and to the systematizing tendencies of philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

Perhaps no philosopher has so fully explored the nature and conditions of historical understanding as Wilhelm Dilthey. His work, conceived overall as a Critique of Historical Reason and developed through his well-known theory of the human studies, provides concepts and methods still fruitful for those concerned with analyzing the human condition. Despite the increasing recognition of Dilthey's contributions, relati vely few of his writings have as yet appeared in English translation. It is therefore both timely and useful (...) to have available here two works drawn from different phases in the development of his philosophy. The "Ideas Concerning a Descriptive and Analytic Psychology" (1894), now translated into English for the first time, sets forth Dilthey's programma tic and methodological viewpoints through a descriptive psychology, while "The Understanding of Other Persons and Their Expressions of Life" (ca. 1910) is representative of his later hermeneutic approach to historical understanding. DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY AND THE HUMAN STUDIES Dilthey presented the first mature statement of his theory of the human studies in volume one of his Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften (Introduction to the Human Studies), published in 1883. He argued there that for the proper study of man and history we must eschew the metaphysical speculation of the absolute idealists while at the same time avoiding the scientistic reduction of positivism. (shrink)

As a contextual phenomenon, metaphor operates in fundamentally different ways in divergent universes of discourse. In historiography, Maurice Mandelbaum's incisive typology of forms of historical discourse affords a comprehensive conceptual basis for foregrounding the three fundamental ways that metaphor functions. Each of the three functions of metaphor facilitates historical understanding on a different epistemological level. Heuristic imagery advances deliberative, analytic understanding and falls within the domain of explanatory discourse. Depictive imagery presentationally facilitates the apprehension of meanings (...) and occurrences; it is a component of narrative, which includes sequential, discourse. Finally, cognitive imagery, operative on the metahistorical plane, orchestrates interpretive discourse and thereby governs the way that events may be known in and of themselves. (shrink)

An introduction to the contemporary epistemology and philosophy of histography of Bernard Lonergan. A comparative analysis of Lonergan's perspective on objectivity in historical knowledge, perspectivism, and the deconstructionist approaches of metahistorians. Beards argues the relevance of Lonergan's contributions to current debates.

(1989). The Limits of History: Ontology, Anthropology and Historical Understanding. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology: Vol. 20, The Look, Myth and History, pp. 150-165.

Gallie contends that historical narrative differs from the generalizing natural sciences and can be understood with peculiar directness. In following a story through contingent events to its conclusion, explicit explanation is needed only rarely. But although history is in some sense a narrative, Gallie fails to see that a story can be followed only if one has a fund of generalizations. Judgment about acceptable contingencies rests on prior appreciation of a framework of generalized expectations that are not falsified by (...) particular incidents. Contingencies are unique only because they are counter to. this framework - which serves to limit outcomes and the possible role of contingent happenings, not for deducing events. History is not entirely like art; we are interested in the connections of events, not only in the outcome of a story. (shrink)

A major voice in late twentieth-century philosophy, Alan Donagan is distinguished for his theories on the history of philosophy and the nature of morality. The Philosophical Papers of Alan Donagan, volumes 1 and 2, collect 28 of Donagan's most important and best-known essays on historical understanding and ethics from 1957 to 1991. Volume 1 includes essays on Spinoza, Descartes, Bradley, Collingwood, Russell, Moore, and Popper, as well as two previously unpublished papers on the history of philosophy as a (...) discipline, and on Ryle and Wittgenstein's nature of philosophy. Linked by Donagan's commitment to the central importance of history for philosophy and his interest in problems of historical understanding, these essays represent the remarkable scope of Donagan's thought. (shrink)

During the last decades the physico-chemical conception of self-organization of chemical systems has been created. The chemical systems in natural-historical processes do not have any creator: they rise up from irreversible processes by self-organization. The issue of self-organization in physics has led to a new interpretation of the laws of nature. As Ilya Prigogine has shown, they do not express certainties but possibilities and describe a world that must be understood in a historical way. In the new philosophical (...) understanding of nature priority is not ascribed to any single type or level of entity, but to historical processes, to processes of endless generation and change. (shrink)

In ‘The Epistemic Goals of the Humanities’, Stephen Grimm (2024) argues for epistemic continuities between the humanities, on one hand, and the social and natural sciences, on the other. This paper focuses on discontinuities. Drawing inspiration from Svetlana Alexievich’s literary non-fiction, I argue that if a reader is to gain a specific kind of understanding of the actions of the agents who appear in such work, they must engage in a rational evaluation of those agents’ reasons and actions. This (...) epistemic process may yield, not just understanding of another’s action, but a grip on the evaluative distance between the reader and the agents she reads about, together with a greater appreciation of normative matters. These epistemic gains are, I suggest, central to the value of the humanities, and play a key role in its corrective power. (shrink)

I begin by identifying two approaches for comprehending actions: the analytical approach and the hermeneutical approach. I examine two analytical approaches. The first is the covering law model as defended by Ernest Nagel. The second is the practical syllogism as defended by G. H. von Wright. They are both inadequate because the interpretation they allow for is limited. That is, the contexts into which they would fit actions do not allow for the range of meanings an action may present. The (...) hermeneutical approach, on the other hand, licenses any followable connections. Determination of relevant connections is made with reference to the question precipitating inquiry and the particular situation inquired into. ;Moreover, looking closely at the notion of cause, I show that the sort of causality the historian uses differs from the sort of causality of interest to natural and social scientists. That is, the historian is interested in examining individual causal connections as a way of comprehending particular incidents together, whereas the natural and social scientists are primarily concerned with comprehending individual events into a class of events and then connecting classes of events, which abstractly connect the individual events. In this way, prediction becomes possible. ;We cannot comprehend history in the same way in which we comprehend nature if we think that actions have no broader meaning than their place in the order of nature. While this view is abhorrent to some, it is held by many serious people. Consequently, we move from an epistemological question to an ethical question, "Ought we to try to comprehend history in the way we comprehend nature?" We must acknowledge this ethical question because the relationship between knower and thing known in history is not only an epistemological relationship, it is also a human relationship. Like all human relationships, it has an ethical dimension. ;Narrative comprehension of human action is to be preferred over more straightforwardly theoretical modes of comprehension because the narrative form is peculiarly able to comprehend alternative points of view into coherent wholes. Its ability to do this allows for the presentation of agents not simply as objects, but as subjects. One particularly important reason for this is that once we see the formal principle of unity within narrative as a movement to agreement, we can recognize this same movement as the principle underlying each person's experience. ;History may help us to re-affirm democratic values because in its recognition of the diversity of points of view it reminds us that each of us has only a perspective on the social world, and not the whole story. The reason for this, however, is not some failure of will on our part, but rather that the social world is a creation of our interpretations as well as our actions, and all of our interpretations have some role in the formation of the contexts that form the meaning of our words and deeds. (shrink)

Linked by Donagan's commitment to the central importance of history for philosophy and his interest in problems of historical understanding, these essays represent the remarkable scope of Donagan's thought.

"In an age when objective moorings are being cut loose and experience reigns supreme, we need more than ever to reiterate that the distinctive feature of Christianity is its grounding in history. In this concise, well-written work, a noted philosopher and committed evangelical enables thoughtful readers to grapple with key questions in the relationship between faith and historical understanding and leads them to the awareness of a necessity for commitment to the One who stands behind as well as (...) in history." ? Richard V. Pierard, Professor of History, Indiana State University "Highly recommended." ? Calvin Theological Journal "Professor Nash has given us a lucid exposition of an important subject that should concern both Christian and serious inquirers into the basis of Christianity. He has the gift of making very profound philosophical issues comprehensible to the average reader. His use of quotations and illustrations is most illuminating. I appreciated especially his clear analysis of the existential and naturalistic presuppositions of a key New Testament scholar, Rudolf Bultmann. I will be glad to recommend this volume to undergraduates, graduates, and faculty colleagues." ? Edwin Yamauchi, Former President, Conference on Faith and History Professor, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. (shrink)

Chiefly a treatment of two problems in the philosophy of history: the nature of historical understanding, and its bearing upon political life, science and philosophy. As regards the first, the author proposes an account of what it is to follow an "evidenced narrative." The burden of discussion of the second is to argue for positive uses of historical understanding, including its capacities for moral guidance, and its use for appreciating how philosophical problems may be clarified.—N. S. (...) C. (shrink)

THE LENGTHENING SHELF of books on the special problems of historical knowledge reminds us that few obiter dicta have worn quite as badly as Santayana's remark that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Though it epitomizes a recurrent mood of impatience with those who refuse to acknowledge our own favorite analogies between present problems and past disasters, yet it leaves one feeling uneasily committed to a set of underlying presuppositions which one would not care (...) to make explicit. Is the historical process of itself really repetitive? How many great historical changes have been brought about—as in the Renaissance—by those who did know history and wished to repeat its classic forms? Or is it possible, as Santayana suggests, that knowledge of history brings release from otherwise ineluctable forces and their consequences? What in Santayana's time seemed a radical denial of the commonplace notion of inevitable progress now appears as the most conservative of nineteenth-century attitudes: the belief that historical reality is there, weaving and reweaving its tangled web, subject like the laws of nature to discovery and perhaps exploitation, but remaining a field of real entities and forces whether discovered or not. Santayana's dictum is of a piece with all those claims which begin, "History shows that...." But few historians or philosophers now have much sympathy even with the possibility of such claims. Were there significantly repetitive patterns of major events, historical knowledge would indeed make the present an elaborate form of déjà vu. Yet historians above all are reluctant to claim that their subject is a manual of politics or of anything else. Call any current event "another Munich," and any historian worth his salt will list seventeen important respects in which that event does not, and even could not resemble Chamberlain's ill-starred agreement. (shrink)