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Progress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Gordon Graham
Gordon Graham
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews
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Extract

For a long time theories of history of the speculative sort have been out of favour. Accounts of the whole sweep of human history, like Hegel's, or even of more limited historical cycles, like Spengler's or Toynbee's, have been found much too grand for the workaday historian and have smacked too much of apriorism for post-positivist philosophy. Consequently, few take them seriously or treat them as more than fanciful aberrations which may serve as useful examples of how not to proceed in history or philosophy.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 61 , Issue 237 , July 1986 , pp. 331 - 343
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1986

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References

1 Midgley, Mary, Beast and Man (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1979).Google Scholar

2 For a recent discussion of this issue see Cottingham, John, ‘Neo-Naturalism and its Pitfalls’, Philosophy 58, No. 226 (10 1983).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 1 owe this point to Mr Basil O'Neill.

4 It is noteworthy, on this point, that both Aristotle and Hegel were men of enormous learning.