Philosophy of History
The philosophical study of history both as the course of human events and as a form of knowledge — asking what historical explanation, objectivity, time, and meaning amount to.
Definition
The philosophy of history is the branch of philosophy concerned with the meaning, pattern, and direction of the historical process (speculative philosophy of history) and with the nature, methods, and epistemic status of historical knowledge (critical or analytic philosophy of history).
Scope
This area covers the two principal branches of the philosophy of history: the speculative inquiry into whether history has an overall pattern, direction, or meaning, and the critical or analytic inquiry into the nature of historical knowledge — how historians explain the past, justify their claims, achieve (or fail to achieve) objectivity, and structure time and periodization. It situates these questions within historiography, where they bear directly on practice.
Sub-topics
Core questions
- Does history as a whole have a pattern, direction, or meaning?
- What form does explanation take in history, and how does it differ from explanation in the natural sciences?
- Can historical knowledge be objective, and what would that mean?
- How do historians constitute and divide historical time?
Key theories
- Speculative versus critical philosophy of history
- Walsh distinguished speculative philosophy of history, which seeks meaning or pattern in the whole course of events, from critical (analytic) philosophy of history, which examines the logic and epistemology of historical inquiry.
- History as re-enactment
- Collingwood held that historical understanding consists in re-thinking the thought of past agents, so that the historian recovers the inside of events rather than only their outward sequence.
- History as dialogue between historian and facts
- Carr argued that historical facts do not speak for themselves but are selected and interpreted by historians, making history a continuous, mutually shaping dialogue between the present and the past.
History
Speculative philosophy of history reached its height with Enlightenment and idealist thinkers — Vico, Kant, Hegel, and Marx — who sought laws or a direction in human development. In the twentieth century attention shifted to the critical analysis of historical knowledge, through Collingwood's idealism, the Hempel–Dray debate over covering laws, and later epistemological treatments of historiography.
Debates
- Covering laws versus understanding
- Hempel argued historical explanation implicitly relies on general laws, while Collingwood and Dray held that understanding past action is a distinct, non-nomological form of explanation centered on agents' reasons.
- Is there meaning in history as a whole?
- Speculative philosophers claimed to discern direction or purpose in the historical process, while critics regard such grand patterns as unverifiable projections onto contingent events.
Key figures
- G. W. F. Hegel
- R. G. Collingwood
- E. H. Carr
- W. H. Walsh
- Carl Hempel
- Aviezer Tucker
Related topics
Seminal works
- carr1961
- collingwood1946
- walsh1951
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between speculative and critical philosophy of history?
- Speculative philosophy of history asks whether the whole course of events has meaning or direction, while critical (analytic) philosophy of history examines how historical knowledge is produced and justified.
- What did Collingwood mean by 're-enactment'?
- He meant that to understand a past action the historian must re-think the thought behind it, recovering the agent's reasoning rather than describing only the external event.