{"title":"Pre-Narrativist Philosophy of History","authors":"Jonas Ahlskog","doi":"10.1163/18722636-12341497","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Prior to the narrativist turn in the 1970s, philosophy of history focused on action and agency. Seminal pre-narrativist philosophers of history – from Collingwood and Oakeshott to Dilthey and Gadamer – argued that agent-centred action explanation constitutes an irreducible element of historical research. This paper re-examines the agent-centred perspective as one of the key insights of pre-narrativist philosophy of history. This insight has not only been neglected in philosophy of history after the narrativist turn but also fundamentally misunderstood. The paper advances two connected arguments: (i) that the agent-centred perspective is internal to the very idea of historical knowledge, and (ii) that the agent-centred perspective is epistemically prior to retrospective (re)description, which has been the focus of narrativist philosophy of history. In conclusion, the paper contends that the agent-centred and the retrospective perspective constitute two integral and irreducible modes of thought that belong to history.","PeriodicalId":43541,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Philosophy of History","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of the Philosophy of History","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18722636-12341497","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HISTORY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Prior to the narrativist turn in the 1970s, philosophy of history focused on action and agency. Seminal pre-narrativist philosophers of history – from Collingwood and Oakeshott to Dilthey and Gadamer – argued that agent-centred action explanation constitutes an irreducible element of historical research. This paper re-examines the agent-centred perspective as one of the key insights of pre-narrativist philosophy of history. This insight has not only been neglected in philosophy of history after the narrativist turn but also fundamentally misunderstood. The paper advances two connected arguments: (i) that the agent-centred perspective is internal to the very idea of historical knowledge, and (ii) that the agent-centred perspective is epistemically prior to retrospective (re)description, which has been the focus of narrativist philosophy of history. In conclusion, the paper contends that the agent-centred and the retrospective perspective constitute two integral and irreducible modes of thought that belong to history.
期刊介绍：
Philosophy of history is a rapidly expanding area. There is growing interest today in: what constitutes knowledge of the past, the ontology of past events, the relationship of language to the past, and the nature of representations of the past. These interests are distinct from – although connected with – contemporary epistemology, philosophy of science, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and aesthetics. Hence we need a distinct venue in which philosophers can explore these issues. Journal of the Philosophy of History provides such a venue. Ever since neo-Kantianism, philosophy of history has been central to all of philosophy, whether or not particular philosophers recognized its potential significance.
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