Towards an Integrated Model of Historical Explanation

As is well known, philosophers of history in the past thirty years have increasingly turned their attention from the question of explanation, conceived in a positivist mode, to that of narrative. The praxis of historians typically takes the form of narrative, and philosophical reflection on it opened many new lines of investigation, whereas the discussion of explanation by covering laws appeared to be exhausted. Since narratives are not, on their face, explanations of the classical type, there is an apparent contradiction between narrative and explanation. I believe that there is no inevitable opposition between them; but before I can substantiate that conviction, I must inquire why interest in historical explanation per se appears to have flagged.' It has not been merely a sui generis boredom with the topic. Discussions of historical explanation have suffered from being isolated from theoretical reflection on the structure of the past the process of history and from analysis of the changing praxis of historians. Reflection on historical explanation can be revitalized if it is linked to the theory of the process of history and to the real problems of historians' technique

Epistemology · History · Philosophy · Philosophy, History, and Historiography

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