Our Knowledge of the Past: A Philosophy of Historiography

by Aviezer Tucker

• ISBN13: 9780521120777
• ISBN10: 0521120772
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-10-01
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

How do historians, comparative linguists, biblical and textual critics and evolutionary biologists establish beliefs about the past? How do they know the past? This book presents a philosophical analysis of the disciplines that offer scientific knowledge of the past. Using the analytic tools of contemporary epistemology and philosophy of science the book covers such topics as evidence, theory, methodology, explanation, determination and underdetermination, coincidence, contingency and counterfactuals in historiography. Aviezer Tucker's central claim is that historiography as a scientific discipline should be thought of as an effort to explain the evidence of past events. He also emphasizes the similarity between historiographic methodology to Darwinian evolutionary biology. This is an important, fresh new approach to historiography and will be read by philosophers, historians and social scientists interested in the methodological foundations of their disciplines.

Table of Contents

Introduction: the philosophy of historiography

Consensus and historiographic knowledge

The history of knowledge of history

The theory of scientific historiography

Historiographic opinion

Historiographic explanation

The limits of historiographic knowledge

Conclusion

Historiography and history

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