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On Explanations in History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Arthur C. Danto
Arthur C. Danto*
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Extract

Whether or not history is, or could be, or ought to be a science, depends in part upon how the words “science” and “history” are to be used. But if one of the criteria of a science is an ability to provide explanations of large numbers of events by means of a small number of general laws, it then becomes in part a question of whether or not history does, or can, provide explanations of this sort for the phenomena which concern it. It is common knowledge that history, at the present time, displays no obvious instance of such an explanation; and I shall try to argue that, though the phenomena with which history deals could conceivably be explained in a “scientific” manner, it is not the office of history to provide such explanations, nor does its lack of explanations in any way diminish either the effectiveness or importance of history. So if my conclusions here suggest that history is not a science, and could not be one, they also suggest that it ought not to be one, but that it is a special and irreducible activity of the human spirit, with a function and justification of its own.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , January 1956 , pp. 15 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © 1956, The Williams & Wilkins Company

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Footnotes

∗

I am indebted to Dr. Joseph Turner, Prof. Benjamin Nelson, and Mr. Richard Arendt for critical and stylistic suggestions. But I alone am responsible for such extravagances and misconceptions as this paper may contain.

References

1 Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (Cambridge; Harvard University Press, 1955), p. 28.

2 Talcott Parsons, introduction to Max Weber's The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (New York; Oxford University Press, 1947), p. 8 ff.

3 R. M. MacIver, Society (New York, Farrar & Rinehart, 1931), p. 530. Cited by Nagel. See note 15.

4 C. G. Hempel and Paul Oppenheim, “The Logic of Explanation,” reprinted in Feigl and Brodbeck, Readings in The Philosophy of Science (New York; Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1953), p. 327.

5 This is one way of interpreting Spinoza's famous argument: “What the body can do no one has hitherto determined, that is to say, experience has taught no one hitherto what the body, without being determined by the mind, can do and what it cannot do from the laws of nature alone, insofar as nature is considered merely as corporeal …” Ethics, Part III, prop, ii, scholium.

6 It appears that there were good grounds for Descartes' denunciation. For the historians of his time were generally less concerned to seek and state the truth than to construct elegantly turned narratives which were to rival popular romances. At the same time they regarded history as a means of moral edification, and the past as a warehouse of paradigms. As one of them stated, “It were better to employ one's time in composition, and in arranging the facts of history than to search for them; it were also better too to think of the beauty and strength, the clearness and concision of style, than to appear infallible in everything one writes.” Quoted by Paul Hazard, in La Crise de la conscience européenne (Paris; Boivin, 1935), p. 32. Hazard has listed a number of examples of such factual insouciance.

7 For example, there are 4,600 known manuscripts of the Greek New Testament. None are originals, none are copies of originals, all are copies of copies. Which of these best represent the originals? In four chapters of the St. Luke Gospel, as it is written down in 311 of the manuscripts, there were found at least 2000 places where the texts differed. By assigning numerical values to these variations, information may be taped into the machines which will ultimately sort the errors into groups, and thus enable all copies of the same copy to be grouped. New York Times, August 8, 1954.

8 Marc Bloch, Reflections on the Historian's Craft (New York; Knopf, 1953), p. 113.

9 See my article “On Historical Questioning,” Journal of Philosophy, L, 3. February, 1954.

10 In The Journal of Philosophy, 39, 1942. Reprinted in Feigl and Sellars, Readings in Philosophical Analysis (New York; Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1949), pp. 459–471.

11 Loc. cit., 465.

12 Lee Benson, An Operational Approach to Historiography, mimeographed, Bureau of Applied Social Research, Columbia University, 1955.

13 I think that there are many very large problems raised by the notion of stories, and I am not completely satisfied with the characterization I have given of them either here or elsewhere. For one thing, the earlier statements of a story prepare us for the later ones, and in a sense generate the “laws” by virtue of which we come to accept the later statements as having been explained. And this, I think, raises issues of both a logical and an aesthetic kind. I am willing to consider a story (which purports to be true) as a rather large and complex proposition to be tested in toto. Goodman has recently suggested that “to seek truth is to see a true system.” “Axiomatic Measurement of Simplicity,” Journal of Philosophy, LII, 24, p. 709. I am not sure whether a story can be construed as a system of any sort, but I think I would vary this utterance by saying that, in history, to seek truth is to seek a true story. I shall hope to exhibit the propriety of this notion in a forthcoming article, “Narrative Structures and True Stories.”

14 Suppose it known that the French government commissioned Rodin to execute a portal for a proposed Palais des Arts Décoratifs in 1879, the theme to be taken from Dante's Divine Comedy. Imagine two different models constructed on the basis of this information, one suggesting that the thematic decision was really Rodin's, the other that it was the government's. Evidence showing that the government wished to honor the Italian people by celebrating their national masterpiece would support the latter, evidence showing that Rodin had cherished such a project antecedently would support the former. These hypotheses are not incompatible, either with the evidence or with one another, but it is not difficult to imagine what further evidence would disqualify either.

15 Ernest Nagel, “Problems of Concept and Theory Formation in the Social Sciences,” in Science, Language, and Human Rights (Philadelphia; University of Pennsylvania Press, 1952), I, 63.

16 Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (New York; Basic Books, 1952), I, xiii.

17 Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies (Princeton University Press, 1950, II, 249. Cited by Patrick Gardiner. On the Nature of Historical Explanation, p. 88.

18 The Social Sciences in Historical Study. Social Science Research Council Bulletin 64 (New York, 1954), p. 156. Certain of the following remarks are based on my review of this work in Journal of Philosophy. LII, 18, pp. 500–502.

19 ibid., 159.

20 ibid., 170.