Beiträge zur negativen Revolutionstheorie: Plato, Thomas von Aquin, Bacon, Kant (review)

Abstract

370 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY since the theory of historical re-enactment requires, for Skagestad, an untenable isomorphism between acts of thought and thought contents. Skagestad finds Popper's deficiency rectified in Collingwood, and Collingwood's Idea of History rectified in the Essay on Metaphysics. Thus, "the theory of presuppositions, rather than the notion of re-enactment, [is] the most mature and most defensible version of Coilingwood 's theory of historical explanation" (p. 87). The theory of presuppositions, then, is the proper way to frame the method of history by rational explanation: "I have called this approach to historical method the 'Popper-Collingwood approach' because, despite the philosophical differences between them, the actual method prescribed by each seems to be substantially one and the same" (p. 93). Both Collingwood and Popper find that their historical method requires more justification than Skagestad thinks is necessary, and one must wonder if the theory of presuppositions is itself sufficient to carry a method that CoUingwood and Popper ground in far more elaborate epistemological bases. By removing the differences in justification and leaving us with a common method, Skagestad has done one of two things. He may, by removing their theoretical backgrounds, by removing the distinctive and controversial force of each conception of historical method, have left a notion of historical explanation by reasons rather than causes so broad that it is hard to think of any decent historian or historiographer left outside the pale. Or, Skagestad may be constructing a useful strategy here of considering Popper and Coilingwood as a single approach precisely because the differences between the two become, as Skagestad illustrates in the appendix on Stalin, productive ambiguities and tension within a single theory. This could be a productive strategy because the "Popper-CoUingwood approach " leaves open what both Popper and Collingwood define--the idea of a problem situation or an historical event--and this openness, this fluctuation in the demarcation of a problem situation, may be necessary to doing history. According to Skagestad's practice, he seems to be following the second alternative, but his exposition of historical method is weakened by his destruction of the philosophical bases of the method. Although Skagestad has shown the value of treating Popper and Collingwood as proponents of a single method, the relation between historical method and its justification does become a puzzle. Although there are clear and deep differences between their theories of history, Skagestad finds the method each advocates "substantially one and the same." But that verdict must surely be complicated if one considers Popper's and Collingwood's historical practice as well as what they write about history. Popper, in the Open Society, has written a history of antihistory, and in the Poverty of Historicism, a treatment of antihistory that is itself not historical. Collingwood, on the other hand, in the Idea of History, has written a history of history. Hegel figures as a major character both in Popper's exposition of the history of antihistory and in Collingwood's history of history. Surely these facts point to important differences between Popper and Collingwood on the nature of reason, rational explanation , and history. Considering these differences should make the "Popper-Collingwood approach " into something richer than Skagestad has yet given us. EUGENE GARVER California State College, San Bernardino Beitri~ge zur negativen Revolutionstheorie: Plato, Thomas von Aquin, Bacon, Kant. By Filadelfo Linares. (Percha: Verlag R. S. Schulz, 1975. Pp. 188. DM 22.50) Linares outlines the thought of four political thinkers who disapprove of revolution. These distinct essays are never integrated into a comprehensive statement but remain simply contributions -grist for someone else's mill. Linares himself is far from being opposed to revolutions , however. He recognizes that a sound analysis of the phenomena can be of practical BOOK REVIEWS 371 value not only for those who wish to divert or neutralize a potential insurrection but also for those who want to instigate radical social change. Although his clear and objective restatements are interrupted at times with suggestions that the later contributions of Marx transform the negative evaluation, then, they retain a value that is independent of any particular political commitment. In the essay on Plato, which provides the backbone of...