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Philosophy of history
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Philosophy of history
Philosophy of history is the philosophical study of history and its discipline. The term was coined by the French philosopher Voltaire.
In contemporary philosophy a distinction has developed between the speculative philosophy of history and the critical philosophy of history, now referred to as analytic. The split between these approaches may be approximately compared, by analogy and on the strength of regional and academic influences, to the schism in commitments between analytic and continental philosophy wherein the analytic approach is pragmatic and the speculative approach attends more closely to a metaphysics (or anti-metaphysics) of determining forces like language or the phenomenology of perception at the level of background assumptions.
At the level of practice, the analytic approach questions the meaning and purpose of the historical process whereas the speculative approach studies the foundations and implications of history and the historical method. The names of these are derived from C. D. Broad's distinction between critical philosophy and speculative philosophy.[verification needed]
The divergence between these approaches crystallizes in the disagreements between Hume and Kant on the question of causality. Hume and Kant may be viewed in retrospect—by expressive anachronism—as analytic and speculative, respectively. Historians like Foucault or Hannah Arendt, who tend to be spoken of as theorists or philosophers before they are acknowledged as historians, may largely be identified with the speculative approach whereas generic academic history tends to be cleave to analytic and narrative approaches.
In his Poetics, Aristotle (384–322 BCE) maintained the superiority of poetry over history because poetry speaks of what ought or must be true rather than merely what is true.
Herodotus, a fifth-century BCE contemporary of Socrates, broke from the Homeric tradition of passing narrative from generation to generation in his work "Investigations" (Ancient Greek: Ἱστορίαι; Istoríai), also known as Histories. Herodotus, regarded by some[who?] as the first systematic historian, and, later, Plutarch (46–120 CE) freely invented speeches for their historical figures and chose their historical subjects with an eye toward morally improving the reader. History was supposed to teach good examples for one to follow.[attribution needed] The assumption that history "should teach good examples" influenced how writers produced history.
From the Classical period to the Renaissance, historians' focus alternated between subjects designed to improve mankind and a devotion to fact. History was composed mainly of hagiographies of monarchs and epic poetry describing heroic deeds such as The Song of Roland—about the Battle of Roncevaux Pass (778) during Charlemagne's first campaign to conquer the Iberian Peninsula.[citation needed]
In the fourteenth century, Ibn Khaldun, whom George Sarton considered one of the first philosophers of history, discussed his philosophy of history and society in detail in his Muqaddimah (1377). His work represents a culmination of earlier works by medieval Islamic sociologists in the spheres of Islamic ethics, political science, and historiography, such as those of al-Farabi (c. 872 – c. 950), Ibn Miskawayh, al-Dawani, and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201–1274). Ibn Khaldun often criticized "idle superstition and uncritical acceptance of historical data". He introduced a scientific method to the philosophy of history (which Dawood considers something "totally new to his age") and he often referred to it as his "new science", which is now associated with historiography. His historical method also laid the groundwork for the observation of the role of the state, communication, propaganda, and systematic bias in history.
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Philosophy of history
Philosophy of history is the philosophical study of history and its discipline. The term was coined by the French philosopher Voltaire.
In contemporary philosophy a distinction has developed between the speculative philosophy of history and the critical philosophy of history, now referred to as analytic. The split between these approaches may be approximately compared, by analogy and on the strength of regional and academic influences, to the schism in commitments between analytic and continental philosophy wherein the analytic approach is pragmatic and the speculative approach attends more closely to a metaphysics (or anti-metaphysics) of determining forces like language or the phenomenology of perception at the level of background assumptions.
At the level of practice, the analytic approach questions the meaning and purpose of the historical process whereas the speculative approach studies the foundations and implications of history and the historical method. The names of these are derived from C. D. Broad's distinction between critical philosophy and speculative philosophy.[verification needed]
The divergence between these approaches crystallizes in the disagreements between Hume and Kant on the question of causality. Hume and Kant may be viewed in retrospect—by expressive anachronism—as analytic and speculative, respectively. Historians like Foucault or Hannah Arendt, who tend to be spoken of as theorists or philosophers before they are acknowledged as historians, may largely be identified with the speculative approach whereas generic academic history tends to be cleave to analytic and narrative approaches.
In his Poetics, Aristotle (384–322 BCE) maintained the superiority of poetry over history because poetry speaks of what ought or must be true rather than merely what is true.
Herodotus, a fifth-century BCE contemporary of Socrates, broke from the Homeric tradition of passing narrative from generation to generation in his work "Investigations" (Ancient Greek: Ἱστορίαι; Istoríai), also known as Histories. Herodotus, regarded by some[who?] as the first systematic historian, and, later, Plutarch (46–120 CE) freely invented speeches for their historical figures and chose their historical subjects with an eye toward morally improving the reader. History was supposed to teach good examples for one to follow.[attribution needed] The assumption that history "should teach good examples" influenced how writers produced history.
From the Classical period to the Renaissance, historians' focus alternated between subjects designed to improve mankind and a devotion to fact. History was composed mainly of hagiographies of monarchs and epic poetry describing heroic deeds such as The Song of Roland—about the Battle of Roncevaux Pass (778) during Charlemagne's first campaign to conquer the Iberian Peninsula.[citation needed]
In the fourteenth century, Ibn Khaldun, whom George Sarton considered one of the first philosophers of history, discussed his philosophy of history and society in detail in his Muqaddimah (1377). His work represents a culmination of earlier works by medieval Islamic sociologists in the spheres of Islamic ethics, political science, and historiography, such as those of al-Farabi (c. 872 – c. 950), Ibn Miskawayh, al-Dawani, and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201–1274). Ibn Khaldun often criticized "idle superstition and uncritical acceptance of historical data". He introduced a scientific method to the philosophy of history (which Dawood considers something "totally new to his age") and he often referred to it as his "new science", which is now associated with historiography. His historical method also laid the groundwork for the observation of the role of the state, communication, propaganda, and systematic bias in history.