Theory in History

Abstract

Present-day interest in history among philosophers seems largely limited to a debate over the nature of historical explanation among those who for Humean reasons insist that all explanations must rest upon general laws and history cannot be an exception to this, and those who say the historians do explain and since they do not use general laws the Humean claim is obviously mistaken. Like the latter, the present paper takes the explanations of historians seriously, but unlike the latter it is not willing to limit the role of philosophy of history merely to the elucidation of the language in which historians give final expression of their work. Rather it recognizes that those explanations themselves set the stage for further inquiry in that they are required to be justified. It is here that the theories or general laws demanded by Humean analysis come in. After examining examples of general laws offered by way of example of what the “Humean” philosophers are supposed to have in mind, each of which is an immediate generalization of the explanation it is called upon to explain and is, hence, an instance of what has been called “the dogma of universality,” some examples of more promising prospects of theory in history are examined.