Branches of Philosophy
Philosophy of History
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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. Cross-Tradition Connections
Sources
1. History, Philosophy of (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIntroductionQuote, Introduction
What does history consist of - individual actions, social structures, periods and regions, civilizations, large causal processes, divine intervention?
1. History, Philosophy of (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophySection 3.4Quote, 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?
1. History, Philosophy of (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyAssociated With: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelView the Source 1. History, Philosophy of (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyAssociated With: Karl MarxView the Source 1. History, Philosophy of (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIncludes: Immanuel Kant, entry: History, Philosophy of, Section 2.2Quote, 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
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.
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