History as a Rigorous Discipline
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4968693 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gert H Muller (corresponding author), Gert Muller |
| Year | 1967 |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 299 |
| Publication date | 1967-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History and Theory (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-2656 • E-ISSN: 1468-2303 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2504420 |
| OpenAlex | W2313155838 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
The days of philosophy of history seemed numbered when Auguste Comte asserted as his law of the Three Stages that religious thought is superseded by metaphysical thought, which in turn is replaced by positive science. Just as natural philosophy has almost completely capitulated to the positive natural sciences, so philosophy of history, of society, of economics, and of culture, seem to face a similar fate. Their place it taken over by empirical, positive sciences on the one hand, and analytical, generalizing theories on the other. But it is quite erroneous to assume that profound, if occasionally obscure, philosophy is being replaced by positive so-called empirical sciences, oriented towards the collection of facts. The latter have always been present, in whatever humble measure, in Hegel's time and even that of Plato, and such an erroneous interpretation of Comte would indeed leave the field to mindless empiricism. If the theory of the three stages is to be given some serious meaning, it has to be done by saying that philosophy of history has to be replaced by a generalizing theory of history and not by empirical history, which has also been in existence ever since Herodotus and Thucydides. The locus of theory of history, or theoretical history, seems to be clearly defined as far as intellectual history is concerned; this however is not the case with regard to a definition of its content. Just as philosophy of history was a many-faceted phenomenon, so its successor, theory of history, must divide into as many branches as there are different definitions. It is only after a discussion of these branches that any clarity can be attained as to what we mean by theoretical history or theory of history
Epistemology · Sociology · History · Philosophy · Philosophy, History, and Historiography
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,04 |
| Citation span | 1972 - 1972 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |