Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T03:07:58.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Some Neglected Philosophical Problems Regarding History of Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Henry Hodysh
Henry Hodysh*
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Discussion: Doing History of Education III
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , Fall 1969 , pp. 360 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © 1969 by New York University 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. History may be viewed in at least two ways: “On the one hand, we use it to refer to the course of events; a certain stratum of reality, which historians make it their professional business to study. On the other, we use it to denote the historian's study itself; we mean by it a certain kind of inquiry into a certain kind of subject matter.” W. Dray, Philosophy of History (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1964), p. 1. See also Danto, A. C., Analytical Philosophy of History (Cambridge: University Press, 1965), p. 1. For an additional discussion of what is meant by the term “history,” see the Social Science Research Council, Theory and Practice in Historical Study: A Report of the Committee on Historiography, Bulletin 54 (New York: 1946), p. 133. Historiography, the writing of history, entails philosophy of history. For a discussion of historiography and historical method, see Social Science Research Council, ibid.; Barzun, J. and Graff, H., The Modern Researcher (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1952); and Gottschalk, L., Understanding History (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1950).Google Scholar

2. What “philosophies of history” frequently have in common “is the aim of giving a comprehensive account of the historical process in such a way that it can be seen to ‘make sense.’” It is possible to distinguish between the idea that history has “a meaning in the sense that all that has happened or is going to happen has been … preordained by some ‘hidden hand, ’” and the suggestion that history's course to date has a general tendency to follow a certain pattern, the basis of which can be employed as a “hunch” in order to decipher the direction it might possibly take in the future. This view of the philosophy of history iś frequently termed “speculative” and applies to studies such as those of Hegel, G., Spengler, Oswald and Toynbee, Arnold. The critical philosophy of history discusses “the ways in which practicing historians in fact interpret their subject matter, attempting to reveal the presuppositions that underlie any piece of historical thinking.” Gardiner (ed.), P., Theories of History (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1959), pp. 7–8. Italics in original. (Hereafter cited as Theories). Berlin's, I., Historical Inevitability, a document which supports the unpredictability and uniqueness of all past events, proposes a dual classification of historical theorizing: deterministic and nondeterministic. I. Berlin, Historical Inevitability (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), passim. Google Scholar

3. See Collingwood, R. G., The Idea of History (first published by the Clarendon Press, 1946; London: Oxford University Press, 1961) for a discussion of the idea of history as interpreted in terms of thoughts.Google Scholar

4. Oakeshott, M., Experience and Its Modes (Cambridge: University Press, 1933), pp. 110–11.Google Scholar

5. Gardiner, P., The Nature of Historical Explanation (first published in the Oxford Classical and Philosophical Monographs, 1952; London: Oxford University Press, 1955), p. 38.Google Scholar

6. The problem of the meaningfulness and validity of historical documents, from the viewpoint of the philosopher of history, is examined by Gallie, W. B., “Explanations in History and the Genetic Sciences,” Theories, p. 400.Google Scholar

7. Gardiner, , The Nature of Historical Explanation p. 40.Google Scholar

8. Walsh, W., Philosophy of History (first published under the title An Introduction to Philosophy of History; London: Hutchinson and Co., Ltd., 1951; New York: Harper and Row, 1960), p. 43.Google Scholar

9. Gibson, Q., The Logic of Social Enquiry (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1960), p. 9.Google Scholar

10. Cahnman, W. and Boskoff, A., eds., “Sociology and History: Reunion and Rapprochement” Sociology and History: Theory and Research (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1964), p. 4.Google Scholar

11. Pocock, J. A., “Review Essays,” History and Theory, III, No. 1 (1963), 133.Google Scholar

12. Stalnaker, R. C., “Events, Periods, and Institutions in Historians' Language,” History and Theory, VI, No. 2 (1967), 159–79.Google Scholar

13. Ibid., p. 177. Italics in original.Google Scholar

14. Ibid. Google Scholar

15. Hempel, C., “The Function of General Laws in History,” Theories, p. 345.Google Scholar

16. Ibid., p. 349.Google Scholar

17. Ibid., p. 350.Google Scholar

18. Mandelbaum, M., “Historical Explanation: The Problem of ‘Covering Laws, ’” History and Theory, I, No. 3 (1961), 241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. The positivist philosopher of history implicitly, if not explicitly, argues that complete descriptions lead directly to explanations. Additional discussion of scientific description and explanation may be found in Ellis, B., “On the Relation of Explanation to Description,” Mind, LXV (January 1956), 506 ff.; Harré, R., An Introduction to the Logic of the Sciences (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1960); Northrop, F., The Logic of the Sciences and Humanities (New York: Macmillan, 1947); and Alexander, P., Sensationalism and Scientific Explanation (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1963).Google Scholar

20. Hempel, op. cit., p. 347.Google Scholar

21. Scheffler, I., “Verifiability in History: A Reply to Miss Masi,” The Journal of Philosophy, XLVII (January-December 1950), 165. Also see W. Gallie, op. cit., p. 400.Google Scholar

22. White, M., “Historical Explanation,” Theories, p. 365.Google Scholar

23. Hempel, op. cit., p. 350.Google Scholar

24. Walsh, op. cit., p. 41; Nagel, E., The Structure of Science (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961), pp. 25–26.Google Scholar

25. Dray, W., “The Historical Explanation of Actions Reconsidered,” in Hook, S., ed., Philosophy and History (New York: New York University Press, 1963), p. 133. Italics in original. For a critique of Dray's position, see Mazlish, B., “On Rational Explanation in History,” ibid., pp. 275-85.Google Scholar

26. Nielsen, K., “Rational Explanations in History,” ibid., pp. 296–324.Google Scholar

27. Dray, W., Laws and Explanation in History (first published in the Oxford Classical and Philosophical Monographs, 1957; London: Oxford University Press, 1960), p. 44.Google Scholar

28. Tapp, E., “Some Aspects of Causation in History,” The Journal of Philosophy, XLIX (January 1952), 79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29. Danto, A. C., Analytical Philosophy of History (Cambridge: University Press, 1965); Gallie, W. B., Philosophy and the Historical Understanding (London: Chatto and Windus, 1964); White, M., Foundations of Historical Knowledge (New York: Harper and Row, 1965).Google Scholar

30. Dray, op. cit., p. 125.Google Scholar

31. Nielsen, op. cit., p. 298.Google Scholar

32. Danto, op. cit., p. 214.Google Scholar

33. Gibson, op. cit., p. 50.Google Scholar

34. Schutz, A., “Concept and Theory Formation in the Social Sciences,” in Natanson, M., ed., Philosophy of the Social Sciences: A Reader (New York: Random House, 1963), p. 239.Google Scholar

35. Nagel, E., “On the Method of Verstehen as the Sole Method of Philosophy” Philosophy of the Social Sciences: A Reader, p. 264. Also see Mazlish's critique of Verstehen in the following work of which he is editor: Psychoanalysis and History (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1963), p. 3 ff.Google Scholar

36. Gallie, op. cit., pp. 112-13.Google Scholar

37. Stover, R., The Nature of Historical Thinking (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1967), p. 71. Italics in original.Google Scholar

38. Mandelbaum, M., “A Note on History as Narrative,” History and Theory, VI, No. 3 (1967), 419.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39. For some interesting methodological possibilities pertaining to history, see White, H. V., “The Burden of History,” History and Theory, V, No. 2 (1966), 111–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar