Philosophy of history: References & Edit History

Robin G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (1946), is a classical contribution to the critical theory of history; Karl R. Popper, The Poverty of Historicism (1957), provides an influential critique of types of historical speculation; and M.C. Lemon, Philosophy of History: A Guide for Students (2003), is a good introduction. Patrick L. Gardiner, The Nature of Historical Explanation, 3rd ed. (1967); William H. Dray, Laws and Explanation in History (1957); Peter Winch, The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy (1958); and Morton G. White, Foundations of Historical Knowledge (1965), are four analytical discussions relating to historical knowledge and understanding. Frank E. Manuel, Shapes of Philosophical History (1965), is a brief but reliable survey of the development of speculative theories. William Dray, Perspectives in History (1980), is an explorative collection of essays on particular theorists of history; Anthony Giddens, A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism: Power, Property, and the State (1982), offers an alternative interpretation of history based upon contemporary anthropological research; Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth and History (1981), is a discussion of the nature of truth, knowledge, and order, especially the dichotomy between objective and subjective views of truth; Lawrence Stone, The Past and the Present (1981), is an examination of historiographic methodology; and John W. Miller, The Philosophy of History with Reflections and Aphorisms (1981), is an original personal reflection on history as a human science. A useful anthology on contemporary themes is F.R. Ankersmit and Hans Kellner (eds.), A New Philosophy of History (1995).

Discussions of special issues appear in Mark Blitz, Heidegger’s Being and Time and the Possibility of Political Philosophy (1981); Alfred Schmidt, History and Structure: An Essay on Hegelian-Marxist and Structuralist Theories of History (1982; originally published in German, 1971); Edmund E. Jacobitti, Revolutionary Humanism and Historicism in Modern Italy (1981); and Eugene Webb, Eric Voegelin: Philosopher of History (1981).