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List of figures and tables | p. x |
Preface | p. xi |
Evidence of the Past | |
An introduction to historical practice | p. 3 |
The past in the present | p. 3 |
The professionalization of history | p. 5 |
Relations with the past | p. 9 |
Forms of historical production | p. 12 |
Further reading and study questions | p. 15 |
Historical methodology | p. 16 |
Scissors and paste | p. 16 |
Rules of historical reasoning | p. 20 |
Peer reviews | p. 21 |
A philosophical approach to historical reasoning | p. 25 |
Primary sources | p. 27 |
Further reading and study questions | p. 29 |
Reasoning from the evidence | p. 31 |
Bayesianism | p. 31 |
The limitations of Bayesianism | p. 34 |
Explanation and inference | p. 37 |
Unwinding the spool | p. 40 |
Explanatory virtues | p. 42 |
The preservation of testimony | p. 44 |
Further reading and study questions | p. 49 |
History as Science | |
Abstraction and laws | p. 53 |
What's so great about science? | p. 53 |
Abstraction and quantification | p. 55 |
Positivism | p. 59 |
Laws | p. 62 |
Against universality | p. 65 |
Rehabilitating causation | p. 69 |
Further reading and study questions | p. 72 |
The causal sciences | p. 73 |
Against causation in history | p. 73 |
Singular causation | p. 76 |
Causation and contrasts | p. 80 |
What is a historical theory? | p. 83 |
Justifying historical theories: comparison and contrast | p. 88 |
Justifying historical theories: explaining how | p. 91 |
Further reading and study questions | p. 93 |
Theory and particular | p. 95 |
The historian's role | p. 95 |
A priori argument from particularity | p. 96 |
Applying general terms | p. 98 |
The 'chemical' sciences | p. 102 |
Combining theories in practice | p. 105 |
Narrative and theory | p. 107 |
Is naturalism the best account of historical practice? | p. 110 |
Further reading and study questions | p. 111 |
History as Interpretation | |
Feeling and thought | p. 115 |
Questions in the philosophy of interpretation | p. 115 |
Empathy | p. 118 |
Collingwood and re-enactment | p. 121 |
Living history | p. 123 |
All history is the history of thought | p. 126 |
Further reading and study questions | p. 129 |
Actions, reasons and norms | p. 130 |
Rationality | p. 130 |
What is it to act rationally? | p. 133 |
Meaning and society | p. 137 |
Social norms | p. 139 |
The Great Cat Massacre | p. 144 |
Interim conclusion: interpretation and evidence | p. 147 |
Further reading and study questions | p. 149 |
From Interpretation to Discourse | |
Subject and object | p. 153 |
Historicism | p. 153 |
Objectivity and evaluation | p. 156 |
Selection and importance | p. 159 |
Dialogue | p. 162 |
Further reading and study questions | p. 166 |
Narrative | p. 167 |
What are narratives? | p. 167 |
Narrative and discourse | p. 171 |
Metahistory | p. 174 |
Narrative and truth | p. 178 |
Collective narrative and metanarrative | p. 181 |
Further reading and study questions | p. 184 |
Truth and Reality | |
The absent past | p. 187 |
Overview: correspondence to reality | p. 188 |
Overview: anti-realism | p. 190 |
Beyond statement truth | p. 194 |
Qualified historical scepticism | p. 199 |
Construction of the past | p. 204 |
Present truth and past truth | p. 207 |
Further reading and study questions | p. 209 |
Underdetermination | p. 211 |
Coherence and choice | p. 211 |
Bayesianism reconsidered | p. 214 |
Historiographical disagreement | p. 217 |
Social Construction | p. 220 |
Linguistic Idealism | p. 222 |
Practical relations to the past | p. 225 |
Further reading and study questions | p. 228 |
Conclusion | p. 230 |
Notes | p. 233 |
References | p. 243 |
Index | p. 251 |
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