Varieties and Vagaries of Historical Explanation

Bibliographic Data

ID5086528
AuthorsPaul A Roth (0000-0002-9531-4365, University of California, Santa Cruz, corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume2
Issue2
Pages214-226
Publication date2008-02-15
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the Philosophy of History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1872-261X • E-ISSN: 1872-2636
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/187226308x315040
OpenAlexW2063582492
LanguageEN
Citations received9

For the better part of the 20th century, expositions of issues regarding historical explanation followed a predictable format, one that took as given the nonequivalence of explanations in history and philosophical models of scientific explanation. Ironically, at the present time, the philosophical point of note concerns how the notion of science has itself changed. Debates about explanation in turn need to adapt to this. This prompts the question of whether anything now still makes plausible the thought that history must make some forced choice with regard to the type of science it is and an associated explanatory form. The discussion that follows sketches the alternative forms of explanation between which historians were to pick, and indicates why each proves unsatisfactory. Examination of these issues allows identification of a conception of historical explanation that does not require the metaphysical and epistemological assumptions that engender previous dichotomous characterizations

Epistemology · History of science · Identification (biology · Medieval history · Metaphysics · Philosophy of science · Point (geometry · Sociology · Classics · History · Mathematics · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science

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