Ideal chronicles and future knowledge

Abstract

In his Analytical Philosophy of History A. C. Danto suggests that the main difference between an Ideal Chronicle (i.e. an account of events that is contemporaneous and exhaustive) and a History is that the Chronicle cannot by its nature treat adequately the significance of the events it describes. For, Danto claims, events derive significance from their relations with other events, including those that are future to themselves, and this latter type of significance cannot be described in a Chronicle since it would involve knowledge of the future. In the following discussion it is suggested that the difference between Ideal Chronicles and Histories, if it exists, cannot be the one suggested by Danto. It is claimed that all significance‐giving relations are fully described in a Chronicle and that it is only by the order of its material that it differs from a History.