Between Science and Art

Abstract

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY is not a subject that has ever attracted the interest of many American historians, and today there is less work being done in this area by professional historians than ever before. Those responsible for training the next generation of historians virtually ignore it. Philosophy of does not even find a place in the index of In Pursuit of American History (1970), Walter Rundell's invaluable survey of the training of American historians, and only two or three of the numerous methods courses Rundell describes make even a gesture toward covering the philosophical aspects of history. Though there are doubtless deep-rooted cultural reasons for this neglect, it requires no profound study to recognize that American historians avoid the philosophy of history mostly because it is of so little assistance to them in writing or teaching. Four recently published books, each dealing in its separate way with the philosophy of history, suggest the difficulties the practicing historian has in deriving sustenance, much less stimulation, from this dry fare. The least pretentious of these works, but in some ways the most ambitious, is Richard Freeman's Repentance and Revolt, an attempt to formulate a psychological interpretation of world history. It would be easy to poke fun at Freeman's book, which is full of factual errors (e.g.,